de Graaf, S, Lüders, V, Banks, DA orcid.org/0000-0001-9118-5298 et al. (4 more authors) (2020) Fluid evolution and ore deposition in the Harz Mountains revisited: isotope and crush-leach analyses of fluid inclusions. Mineralium Deposita, 55 (1). pp. 47-62. ISSN 0026-4598
Abstract
Hydrothermal fluid flow along fault zones in the Harz Mountains led to widespread formation of economic vein-type Pb–Zn ore and Ba–F deposits during the Mesozoic. We reconstruct the fluid flow system responsible for the formation of these deposits using isotope ratios (δ2H and δ18O) and anion and cation contents of fluid inclusions in ore and gangue minerals. Building forward on extensive studies in the 1980s and 1990s, our new geochemical data reveal that seawater evaporation brines, which most likely originated from Zechstein evaporites, descended deeply into Paleozoic rocks to leach metals at depth. In Jurassic times, these metal-rich brines episodically recharged along fault zones and mixed with shallow crustal H2S-bearing brines. Primarily in the Upper Harz Mountains, this mixing system led to the formation of economic Pb–Zn–Cu mineralization, which locally shows banded textures with alternations of sulfide minerals and quartz or carbonate (mostly calcite). In the Middle and Lower Harz Mountains, Zechstein-derived brines interacted with K- and F-bearing basement rocks and/or magmatic rocks to deposit fluorite mineralization upon ascent in the Upper Cretaceous. The proposed model of mineralizing fluids originating as (evaporated) seawater has been shown to hold for numerous basin-hosted base-metal sulfide and fluoride deposits elsewhere in Europe.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
Keywords: | Hydrothermal veins; Fluid inclusion geochemistry; Fluid flow; Ore deposition; Harz Mountains |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst of Geophysics and Tectonics (IGT) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 05 Jun 2019 12:33 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 21:51 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Verlag |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s00126-019-00880-w |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:146886 |
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