ARTICLE Age and tectonic setting of the Bavanat Cu–Zn–Ag Besshi-type volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit, southern Iran Fardin Mousivand & Ebrahim Rastad & Sebastien Meffre & Jan M. Peter & Mohammad Mohajjel & Khin Zaw & Mohammad Hashem Emami Received: 7 November 2011 / Accepted: 26 January 2012 # Springer-Verlag 2012 Abstract The Bavanat Cu–Zn–Ag Besshi-type volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposit occurs within the Surian volcano-sedimentary complex in the Sanandaj–Sirjan zone (SSZ) of southern Iran. The Surian complex is comprised of pelite, sandstone, calcareous shale, basalt, gabbro sills, and thin-bedded limestone. Mineralization occurs as stratiform sheet-like and tabular orebodies hosted mainly by greenschist metamorphosed feldspathic and quartz feldspathic sandstone, basalt, and pelites. The basalts of the Surian complex show predominantly tholeiitic to transitional affinities, with a few samples that are alkalic in composition. Primitive mantle- normalized trace and rare earth element (REE) patterns of the Surian basalts display depletions in light REE, negative anomalies of Nb, Ta, and Ti, and positive anomalies of P. Positive P anomalies are indicative of minor crustal contam- ination. Furthermore, Th enrichments in the mid-ocean ridge basalt-normalized patterns of the Surian basalts are character- istic of rifted arc basalts emplaced in continental margin subduction zones. The high MgO content (>6 wt.%) of most Surian basalts and low TiO 2 content of two samples (0.53 and 0.62 wt.%) are characteristic of boninites. The aforementioned features of the basalts indicate arc tholeiites emplaced in intra- arc rift environments and continental margin subduction zones. U–Pb dating by laser ablation- inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry of detrital zircons extracted from the host feldspathic and quartz feldspathic sandstone yields various ages that are predominantly Permian and Triassic; however, the youngest zircons give a mean Early Jurassic concordant U–Pb age of 191±12 Ma. This age, together with geological and petrochemical data, indicate that VMS mineralization formed in the Early Jurassic in pull-apart basins within the SSZ. These basins and the VMS mineralization may be tem- porally related to an intra-arc volcano–plutonic event associated with Neo-Tethyan oblique subduction. Keywords Bavanat . Besshi . VMS . U–Pb . SSZ . Iran Introduction Iran hosts numerous types of volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits that occur within different tectonic assemb- lages and which formed at discrete time periods (Mousivand et al. 2008a). The metamorphic Sanandaj –Sirjan zone Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00126-012-0407-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. F. Mousivand : E. Rastad (*) : M. Mohajjel Department of Geology, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran 14115-175, Iran e-mail: rastad@modares.ac.ir S. Meffre : K. Zaw ARC Centre of Excellence in Ore Deposits (CODES), University of Tasmania, Private Bag 79, Hobart, TAS 7001, Australia J. M. Peter Central Canada Division, Geological Survey of Canada, 601 Booth St., Ottawa, ON, Canada K1A 0E8 M. H. Emami Research Institute for Earth Sciences, Geological Survey of Iran, Tehran 13185-1494, Iran Present Address: F. Mousivand School of Geosciences, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood 3619995161-316, Iran Miner Deposita DOI 10.1007/s00126-012-0407-6