Young orogenic gold mineralisation in active collisional mountains, Taiwan |
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| Authors: | Dave Craw Phaedra Upton Bing-Sheng Yu Travis Horton Yue-Gau Chen |
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| Institution: | (1) Geology Department, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand;(2) GNS Science, Dunedin, New Zealand;(3) National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan;(4) Geological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand;(5) Geosciences Department, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan |
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| Abstract: | Gold-bearing vein systems in the high mountains of Taiwan are part of the youngest tectonic-hydrothermal system on Earth.
Tectonic collision initiated in the Pliocene has stacked Eocene–Miocene marine sedimentary rocks to form steep mountains nearly
4 km high. Thinner portions of the sedimentary pile (∼5 km) are currently producing hydrocarbons in a fold and thrust belt,
and orogenic gold occurs in quartz veins in thicker parts of the pile (∼10 km) in the Slate Belt that underlies the mountains.
Metamorphic fluids (2–5 wt.% NaCl equivalent) are rising from the active greenschist facies metamorphic zone and transporting
gold released during rock recrystallisation. Metamorphic fluid flow at the Pingfengshan historic gold mine was focussed in
well-defined (4 km3) fracture zones with networks of quartz veins, whereas large surrounding volumes of rock are largely unveined. Gold and arsenopyrite
occur in several superimposed vein generations, with ankeritic alteration of host rocks superimposed on chlorite–calcite alteration
zones as fluids cooled and became out of equilibrium with the host rocks. Mineralising fluids had δ18O near +10‰, δ13C was between −1‰ and −6‰ and these fluids were in isotopic equilibrium with host rocks at ∼350°C. Ankeritic veins were emplaced
in extensional sites in kink fold axial surfaces, formed as the rock mass was transported laterally from compressional to
extensional regimes in the orogen. Rapid exhumation (>2 mm/year) of the Slate Belt is causing a widespread shallow conductive
thermal anomaly without igneous intrusions. Meteoric water is penetrating into the conductive thermal anomaly to contribute
to crustal fluid flow and generate shallow boiling fluids (∼250°C) with fluid temperature greater than rock temperature. The
meteoric-hydrothermal system impinges on, but causes only minor dilution of, the gold mineralisation system at depth. |
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