Characterization of agua de Ramon marbles, Cordoba Province, Argentina

Agua de Ramon district is located in the NW of Cordoba, Argentina, between 3 49' and 30052' S and 65021' and 65024' W, in the Eastern Pampean Range setting. It was a very important tungsten district until the end of 1950'decade when tungsten mining became of no economic interest. The objective is to report for the first time the petrological, mineralogical and geochemical characteristics of several marble lenses located in the sourthern of the area. Marble outcrops are lenticular ranging from 1 m to 80 m in length and 0.50 m to 20 m width. They appear massive, fine-grained and in light colors (white, pale green, very light brown and pale gray). These last varieties show a distinct banded structure due to little differences in color. These marbles are mainly composed of magnesian calcite accompanied by minor amounts of dolomite, forsterite, humite group minerals, tremolite, talc, serpentine and clinochlore, and scheelite, sphene, apatite and opaque minerals like hematite, magnetite, illmenite, pirrothite and pyrite as accessory minerals. Major chemical analyses indicate a relatively high SiO2 and MgO content, and minor CaO, in comparison with marbles of this type. Mineral paragenesis was useful to evaluate metamorphism conditions in this area