Formation of Mississippi Valley-type deposits linked to hydrocarbon generation in extensional tectonic settings: Evidence from the Jabali Zn-Pb-(Ag) deposit (Yemen)

Mississippi Valley-type (MVT) Zn-Pb deposits are widely believed to form in compressional tectonic environments, related to gravity-driven fluid flow. Commonly, they are spatially related to hydrocarbon reservoirs in orogenic foreland settings, but the genetic and temporal links between hydrothermal sulfide mineralization, basin evolution and hydrocarbon generation remains tentative in most cases. We have used direct Rb-Sr chronometry of sphalerite to constrain the age of the Jabali MVT deposit, central Yemen, which is located in the well-studied oil-producing Sab´atayn Basin. A Rb-Sr age of 144.0 ± 4.3 Ma for sulfide mineralization obtained from a quantitative geochronological two-component paleomixing model coincides with a well constrained episode of active rifting, oil generation and expulsion in the Sab´atayn Basin during the Upper Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous.