Analysis of the Ore-Controlling Structure of Ductile Shear Zone Type Gold Deposit in Southern Beishan Area, Gansu, Northwest China

Abstract

The ductile shear zone-type gold deposit is a kind that both the ore-forming mechanism and ore-controlling factors are closely related to the ductile shear zone and its evolution. Ductile shear zone develops in Beishan area, Gansu of Northwest China, and develops especially well in the south belt. The controls of the ductile shear zone on gold deposits are as follows. (1) The regional distribution of gold deposits (and gold spots) is controlled by the ductile shear zone. (2) The ductile-brittle shear zone is formed in the evolution process of ductile shear zone and both are only ore-bearing structures and control the shape, attitude, scale, and distribution of mineralization zones and ore-bodies. (3) Compresso-shear ductile deformation results in that the main kind of gold mineralization is altered mylonite type and the main alteralization is metasomatic. (4) Ore-bearing fracture systems are mainly P-type ones, some D-type and R-type ones, but only individual R'-type and T-type ones. (5) Dynamic differentiation and dynamic metamorphic hydrothermal solution resulting from ductile deformation is one of the sources of ore-forming fluid of gold mineralization, and this is identical with that ore-forming materials are mainly from metamorphic rocks, and ore-forming fluid is mainly composed of metamorphic water, and with the fluid inclusion and geo-chemical characteristics of the deposit. (6) There is a negative correlation between the gold abundance and susceptibility anisotropy ( P ) of the altered mylonite samples from the deposit, which shows that the gold mineralization is slightly later than the structural deformation. All above further expound the ore-forming model of the ductile shear zone type of gold deposits.