Paragenesis and geochemistry of ore minerals in the epizonal gold deposits of the Yangshan gold belt, West Qinling, China

Li, Nan; Deng, Jun; Yang, Liqiang; Goldfarb, Richard J.; Zhang, Chuang; Marsh, Erin E.; Lei, Shibin; Koenig, Alan E.; Lowers, Heather A.

doi:10.1007/s00126-013-0498-8

Cited by 61 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The trace element concentrations in pyrite depend on both the nature of the ore fluid and the geochemical properties of the elements. Therefore, trace elements in pyrite have been widely used to constrain the characteristics of ore fluid and explain the genesis of gold deposits (Thomas et al, 2011;Deol et al, 2012;Li et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2014). Pyrite is the main gold-associated mineral of the Jiaodong gold deposits (Yan et al, 2013), including the Xincheng gold deposit, where gold enrichment is positively correlated with pyrite content.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationships Between Gold and Pyrite at the Xincheng Gold Deposit, Jiaodong Peninsula, China: Implications for Gold Source and Deposition in a Brittle Epizonal Environment

et al. 2016

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The Xincheng gold deposit, hosted by the Early Cretaceous 132 to 123 Ma Guojialing-type granitoids in northwest Jiaodong Peninsula, southeast North China craton, formed about 2 billion years later than regional metamorphism of the Archean Jiaodong basement rocks. The Xincheng deposit comprises mineralized zones with three types of hydrothermal pyrite associated with gold, tellurides, and a variety of sulfides: py1 as disseminated euhedral to subhedral grains in altered granitoids around quartz veins; py2 as subhedral grains with brittle cataclastic textures and fractures in quartz-pyrite veins; and py3 as subhedral, partially corroded crystals in sulfide-rich veins or veinlets. All three generations of pyrite are unzoned and have low trace element contents, including very low lattice-bound gold contents: (py1: 0.180 ppm; py2: 0.053 ppm; py3: 0.060 ppm). Given that there is 10 to 15% pyrite in the ore zone at Xincheng, its very low gold content indicates that it contributes <0.2% of gold to the 7.75 g/t gold in the orebody. Instead, over 99% of the gold is present as discrete electrum and/or gold (total range 0.02-59% silver) grains, which are largely sited in fractures at all scales in pyrite, other ore minerals, and quartz. Importantly, visible gold in py3 is also sited on solution-corroded pyrite grains. The pyrite textural and geochemical data indicate that it is impossible to derive the high gold-grade orebodies through local remobilization of originally lattice-bound gold in pyrite. Instead, the gold is interpreted to have been deposited through sulfidation reactions and phase separation of a H2O-CO2 ore fluid during progressive brittle cataclastic deformation associated with seismic activity and regional sinistral transtensional shear movement. This concomitant fluid infiltration and deformation caused episodic deposition and fracturing and corrosion of earlier formed pyrite and deposited visible gold in dilational cracks. The coupled development of the transtensional, rather than normal transpressional setting, and precipitation of gold within dilational veins and wall-rock alteration facilitated the deposition of visible gold and an exceptionally high gold tenor. All deposit characteristics indicate that the Xincheng gold deposit is a member of the epizonal orogenic deposit class.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationships Between Gold and Pyrite at the Xincheng Gold Deposit, Jiaodong Peninsula, China: Implications for Gold Source and Deposition in a Brittle Epizonal Environment

et al. 2016

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“…The alteration developed in the deposits is dominated by silicification, carbonation, sulfidation, and sericitization ( Figure 3e). Gold is mostly invisible in solid solution or in the sulfide lattice, with minor visible gold associated with stibnite [36].…”

Section: Deposit Geologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Grey-green equigranular to porphyritic granitic dikes include granite, plagioclase granite, granite porphyry, and plagioclase granite porphyry, which are Major ore minerals in the gold belt include pyrite, arsenopyrite, and stibnite. Disseminated ores in phyllite or granitic dikes are the dominant ore type, with minor pyrite-arsenopyrite quartz veins, stibnite-bearing quartz veinlets, and quartz-calcite veins (Figure 3b-f) [36,37,52]. The diagenetic pyrite (Py 0 ) has a framboidal or colloform texture and is disseminated in the metasedimentary host rocks.…”

Section: Analytical Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controls on the Distribution of Invisible and Visible Gold in the Orogenic Gold Deposits of the Yangshan Gold Belt, West Qinling Orogen, China

Deng

Groves

et al. 2019

Minerals

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Six orogenic gold deposits constitute the Yangshan gold belt in the West Qinling Orogen. Gold is mostly invisible in solid solution or in the sulfide lattice, with minor visible gold associated with stibnite and in quartz-calcite veins. Detailed textural and trace-element analysis of sulfides in terms of a newly-erected paragenetic sequence for these deposits, together with previously published data, demonstrate that early magmatic-hydrothermal pyrite in granitic dike host-rocks has much higher Au contents than diagenetic pyrite in metasedimentary host rocks, but lower contents of As, Au, and Cu than ore-stage pyrite. Combined with sulfur isotope data, replacement textures in the gold ores indicate that the auriferous ore-fluids post-dated the granitic dikes and were not magmatic-hydrothermal in origin. There is a strong correlation between the relative activities of S and As and their total abundances in the ore fluid and the siting of gold in the Yangshan gold ores. Mass balance calculations indicate that there is no necessity to invoke remobilization processes to explain the occurrence of gold in the ores. The only exception is the Py1-2 replacement of Py1m, where fluid-mediated coupled dissolution-reprecipitation reactions may have occurred to exchange Au between the two pyrite phases.

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“…Therefore, trace elements in pyrite have been widely used to constrain the characteristics of ore fluid [18,[46][47][48]. The correlations between selected major and trace elements in these pyrites are shown in Figure 13.…”

Section: Distribution and Correlations Of Trace Elements In Pyritesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trace Element Analysis of Pyrite from the Zhengchong Gold Deposit, Northeast Hunan Province, China: Implications for the Ore-Forming Process

2018

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The Zhengchong gold deposit is located in the central segment of the Jiangnan Orogen in northeastern Hunan Province, South China. The host rocks of this deposit are the Neoproterozoic slates of the Lengjiaxi Group and granodiorite. The structures in the Zhengchong gold deposit are dominated by NE-trending reverse faults, which control the gold-bearing veins. The orebody consists of NE-trending laminated quartz veins and NW-trending quartz veins. The alteration styles include silicification, carbonatization, sulfidation, sericitization and chloritization. The Zhengchong gold mineralization can be divided into four stages: Quartz-pyrite (stage I), quartz-pyrite-arsenopyrite (stage II), quartz-polysulfide (stage III) and quartz-carbonate (stage IV). Three generations of hydrothermal pyrite were identified: Disseminated euhedral to subhedral cubes in altered wall-rock (PyI), euhedral to subhedral cubes inter-grown with arsenopyrite and tetrahedrite in quartz veins and wall-rock (PyII), and euhedral cubes with microinclusions (native gold, galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, tetrahedrite, and pyrrhotite) or metasomatic textures in sulfide-rich veins or veinlets (PyIII). PyII and PyIII are arsenian pyrite and represent the main Au-bearing minerals. PyI records the lowest concentrations of Au; PyII and PyIII record similar amounts of Au, Cu, Pb, Zn, and Bi, but PyIII is more enriched in Co, Ni, Te, and Se. The substitution of As, Se and Te for S and that of Co and Ni for Fe occurs by direct-ion exchange. Invisible gold is uniformly distributed within the arsenian pyrite, and visible gold fills microfractures in PyII or occurs as inclusions in PyIII. Co, Ni, Cu exhibit positive correlations with Au and a negative correlation between Au + Cu + Co + Ni and Fe reflect that Fe vacancies may have been a major cause of the precipitation of invisible Au and other metal elements in pyrite structure. There are systematic trace element differences between the three generations of pyrite (PyI, PyII, PyIII). The more Co, Ni and Se, Te substitution that occurred for Fe and S, respectively, the greater the increase in the Co/Ni ratio (<1) and the decrease in the Se/Te ratio (<10) in stage III, indicating that a more reduced, lower-temperature metamorphic hydrothermal fluid was present in stage III.

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Paragenesis and geochemistry of ore minerals in the epizonal gold deposits of the Yangshan gold belt, West Qinling, China

Cited by 61 publications

References 41 publications

Relationships Between Gold and Pyrite at the Xincheng Gold Deposit, Jiaodong Peninsula, China: Implications for Gold Source and Deposition in a Brittle Epizonal Environment

Relationships Between Gold and Pyrite at the Xincheng Gold Deposit, Jiaodong Peninsula, China: Implications for Gold Source and Deposition in a Brittle Epizonal Environment

Controls on the Distribution of Invisible and Visible Gold in the Orogenic Gold Deposits of the Yangshan Gold Belt, West Qinling Orogen, China

Trace Element Analysis of Pyrite from the Zhengchong Gold Deposit, Northeast Hunan Province, China: Implications for the Ore-Forming Process

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