A unified model for gold mineralisation in accretionary orogens and implications for regional-scale exploration targeting methods

Hronsky, Jon; Groves, David; Loucks, Robert R.; Begg, Graham

doi:10.1007/s00126-012-0402-y

Cited by 272 publications

(96 citation statements)

References 112 publications

(141 reference statements)

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“…This relationship is due to a number of factors: (1) The addition of juvenile material into the crust before the initiation of a gold-forming event is critical to developing gold fertility Bateman & Bierlein 2007, Hronsky et al 2012. This can happen at anytime before gold mineralization, and suggests that the fertility of the Southern Cross and Murchison gold sources developed 350 -150 myr before the gold mineralizing event at c. 2650-2630 Ma, as this is when juvenile material was added to the crust, creating a fertile source.…”

Section: Orogenic Goldmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(3) The 'Mafic' group of granites (sanukitoids; Cassidy et al 2002) are associated with juvenile crust and appear to be an important factor in gold mineralization (Cassidy et al 1998(Cassidy et al , 2002. These granites are relatively high in Ni, Cr and Mg# as well as large ion lithophile elements (Ba, Sr, light REE; Champion & Sheraton 1997) and such alkalic mafic magmas may have represented an important gold source (Wyman & Kerrich 1988;Müller 2002;Hronsky et al 2012;Duuring et al 2007). The Mafic granites utilized the same structures as gold and were emplaced at the start of the gold event at c. 2650 Ma (Cassidy et al 2002).…”

Section: Orogenic Goldmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This complex and deep-tapping structural network allows the establishment of large hydrothermal cells (Groves et al 1995;Vearncombe 1998;Cox 1999), possibly fuelled by deep-seated granites (Cassidy et al 2002). The fluids would then have potentially fluxed through mafic alkaline igneous rocks, such as the Mafic granite suite (Cassidy et al 2002;Duuring et al 2007), picking up gold and depositing it further down the system in a trap or buffer (Groves et al 1995Hronsky & Groves 2008;McCuaig et al 2010;Hronsky et al 2012). (6) Heat flow -the presence of younger, juvenile crust indicates that the lithosphere in that area may be thinner than in more reworked areas.…”

Section: Orogenic Goldmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Crustal evolution, intra-cratonic architecture and the metallogeny of an Archaean craton

Mole

Fiorentini

Cassidy

et al. 2013

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The generation of the Earth's continental crust modified the composition of the mantle and provided a stable, buoyant reservoir capable of capturing mantle material and ultimately preserving ore deposits. Within the continental crust, lithospheric architecture and associated cratonic margins are a first-order control on camp-scale mineralization. Here we show that the evolving crustal architecture of the Archaean Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia, played a key role in controlling the localization of camp-scale gold, iron and nickel mineralized systems. The age and source characteristics of Archaean lithosphere are heterogeneous in both space and time and are recorded by the varying Nd isotopic signature of crustal rocks. Spatial and temporal variations in isotopic character document the evolution of an intra-cratonic architecture through time, and in doing so map transient lithospheric discontinuities where gold, nickel and iron mineral systems were concentrated. Komatiite-hosted nickel deposits cluster into camps localized within young, juvenile crust at the isotopic margin with older lithosphere; orogenic gold systems are typically localized along major structures within juvenile crust; and banded iron formation (BIF)-hosted iron deposits are localized at the edge of, and within, older lithospheric blocks. Furthermore, this work shows that crustal evolution plays an important role in the development and localization of favourable sources of nickel, gold and iron by controlling the occurrence of thick BIFs, ultramafic lavas and fertile (juvenile) crust, respectively. Fundamentally, this study demonstrates that the lithospheric architecture of a craton can be effectively imaged by isotopic techniques and used to identify regions prospective for camp-scale mineralization.

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Section: Orogenic Goldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Orogenic Goldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Orogenic Goldmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Crustal evolution, intra-cratonic architecture and the metallogeny of an Archaean craton

Mole

Fiorentini

Cassidy

et al. 2013

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“…The most favoured candidate fluid sources are: 1) metamorphic devolatilisation (Kerrich and Wyman, 1990;Goldfarb et al, 1991;Phillips, 1993;McCuaig and Kerrich, 1998;Yardley and Cleverly, 2013); and 2) hydrothermal fluids exsolved from crystallising magmas (de Ronde et al, 2000;Lawrence et al, 2013a;Lawrence et al, 2013b;Treloar et al, 2014). However, alternate sources have been suggested, including, deeply convecting meteoric water (Hagemann et al, 1994;Jenkin et al, 1994), mantlesourced fluids (Cameron, 1988;Hronsky et al, 2012), or fluids expelled from subducting oceanic crust (Breeding and Ague, 2002). In general, candidate sources of Au share similarities with those of fluids.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discriminating fluid source regions in orogenic gold deposits using B-isotopes

Lambert-Smith

Rocholl

Treloar

et al. 2016

Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta

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The genesis of orogenic gold deposits is commonly linked to hydrothermal ore fluids derived from metamorphic devolatilisation reactions. However, there is considerable debate as to the ultimate source of these fluids and the metals they transport. Tourmaline is a common gangue mineral in orogenic gold deposits. It is stable over a very wide P-T range, demonstrates limited volume diffusion of major and trace elements and is the main host of B in most rock types. We have used texturally resolved B-isotope analysis

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“…Such timeframes are linked to the very localised nature, both spatially and temporally, of the controlling mechanisms involved. Fluids and mineralisation processes have been conceptionally pictured as "inverted lightning rods" from depth (Hronsky, et al, 2012) . Episodic fault slip events (Cox, 2016) involving highly-pressurized fluids (Sibson, et al, 1988) have been invoked.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Episodic mineralising fluid injection through chemical shear zones

Poulet

Alevizos²,

Veveakis³

et al. 2018

ASEG Extended Abstracts

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SUMMARYThe nature of the geological mechanisms allowing mineralising fluids to flow from depth and form localized mineral deposits is uncertain and a matter of debate. Traditional assumptions of fluids travelling through highly permeable faults raise interesting questions about the existence of highly permeable faults at depths below the brittle-ductile transition, for example. A recent model of multiphysics oscillation can explain the behaviour of impermeable shear zones in such environments, under specific conditions where temperature sensitive endothermal reactions trigger in-situ release of fluids that lubricate the fault and lead to their reactivation. The response of such systems can be of various nature, including slow creep, one-off reactivation events, or episodic reactivation events during which the permeability increases by several orders of magnitudes and allows fluids from depth to flow upwards. In this contribution, we review briefly the previous studies on this chemo-mechanical oscillator and place the findings in the context of mineral exploration. We extend the parameter sensitivity analysis to the main two dimensionless parameters controlling the chemical reactions, the Arrhenius and Damköhler numbers, to understand how they affect the location of episodic slip instabilities in the global parameter space. We show that lower values of the Damköhler number reduce the range of Gruntfest values in which the oscillator operates and we propose some fitting relationships between the main parameters in various interesting areas of the parameter space.

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A unified model for gold mineralisation in accretionary orogens and implications for regional-scale exploration targeting methods

Cited by 272 publications

References 112 publications

Crustal evolution, intra-cratonic architecture and the metallogeny of an Archaean craton

Crustal evolution, intra-cratonic architecture and the metallogeny of an Archaean craton

Discriminating fluid source regions in orogenic gold deposits using B-isotopes

Episodic mineralising fluid injection through chemical shear zones

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