Welcome to visit Geoscience!

Geoscience ›› 2020, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (03): 554-568.DOI: 10.19657/j.geoscience.1000-8527.2020.03.12

• Ore Deposits • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Properties of Ore-forming Fluids and Genesis of the Xiaoxigong Gold Deposit in the Beishan Region, Gansu Province

YUAN Weiheng1,2(), GU Xuexiang2,3(), ZHANG Yongmei2,3, DU Zezhong4, YU Xiaofei4, SUN Hairui4, LÜ Xin4   

  1. 1. Gold Geological Institute of CAPF, Langfang, Hebei 065000, China
    2. School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China
    3. State Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China
    4. Development and Research Center of China Geological Survry(Mineral Exploration Technical Guidance Center, Ministry of Natural Resources), Beijing 100037, China
  • Received:2019-09-20 Revised:2019-12-21 Online:2020-07-04 Published:2020-07-05
  • Contact: GU Xuexiang

Abstract:

The Xiaoxigong gold deposit is located in the south part of the Beishan orogenic belt. The orebodies are hosted in metamorphic rocks of the Middle Proterozoic Xijianshan Group, and are controlled by the NWW- trending secondary faults. Mineralization process can be divided into three stages, including quartz-pyrite stage (early stage), quartz-polymetallic sulfide stage (main ore stage) and quartz-carbonate stage (late stage). In this paper, fluid inclusions, trace elements and H-O isotopes of the main ore stage are studied in order to determine the properties of the ore-forming fluids and the genesis of the deposit. The quartz of the main ore stage mainly contains H2O-NaCl, CO2-H2O and pure CO2 inclusions. The homogenization temperatures, salinities and densities of H2O-NaCl and CO2-H2O inclusions vary from 194 ℃ to 397 ℃, 2.2% to 8.9% and 0.63 g/cm3 to 0.98 g/cm3, respectively. According to the calculation from CO2-H2O three phase inclusions, the trapping pressures in the ore stage are 257 MPa to 395 MPa and the ore-forming depths are 9.5 km to 14.6 km. The results of fluid inclusion microthermometry, laser Raman spectroscopy and quartz trace elements show that the ore-forming fluid is a CO2-H2O-NaCl±CH4 system and somewhat reduced, with medium-high temperature, low salinity and medium-low density. The values of δDV-SMOW and δ18 O H 2 O in the ore stage are -100.2‰ to -75.6‰ and +4.15‰ to +8.31‰.The fluid inclusion and H-O isotope characteristics indicate that the ore-forming fluids in the main ore stage were mainly metamorphic water, and the fluid immiscibility is an important mechanism for gold precipitation. Comprehensive analyses show that the Xiaoxigong deposit belongs to a mesozonal to hypozonal orogenic gold deposit.

Key words: fluid inclusion, quartz trace element, H-O isotope, orogenic gold deposit, Xiaoxigong gold deposit

CLC Number: