Contribution of mantle components within juvenile lower-crust to collisional zone porphyry Cu systems in Tibet

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Most porphyry Cu–Mo–Au deposits are found in magmatic arcs worldwide, and are associated with hydrous, high-fO2, calc-alkaline magmas, derived from a mantle wedge that was metasomatized by the fluids from a subducted oceanic slab. Recently, such deposits have been documented as occurring widely in collisional settings, where they are associated with potassic magmas generated during the collisional process, but the genesis of the fertile magmas and the mechanism of metallic enrichment remain controversial. Here we present new geochemical and Sr–Nd–Hf isotopic data from the post-collisional fertile and barren porphyries of the Miocene Gangdese porphyry belt in the Tibetan orogen, an orogen formed by the collision of India and Asia in the early Cenozoic. Both types of porphyry are characterized by high K2O contents, and have geochemical affinities with adakite, but the fertile magmas were most likely derived from the melting of a thickened juvenile mafic lower-crust, formed by the underplating of earlier asthenospheric melts at the base of crust, whereas the derivation of the barren magmas involved variable amounts of old lower-crust in Tibet. The melting of sulfide-bearing phases in the juvenile mantle components of the Tibetan lower-crust probably provided Cu, Au, and S to the fertile magmas. The breakdown of amphibole during melting at the source released the fluids necessary for the formation of the porphyry Cu deposits in Tibet. The thickened crust (up to 70–80 km), due to collision, is thought to be responsible for a decrease in the fO2 of the fertile magmas during their ascent to the upper crust, thus preventing the generation of more porphyry Cu–Au and epithermal Au deposits in this collisional zone.