Abstract
Laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) in combination with near-infrared microscopy of fluid inclusions hosted by ore minerals that are opaque to visible light can provide the composition of ore-precipitating fluids. We applied the two techniques to well-constrained fluid inclusion assemblages hosted by pyrite, enargite, and quartz to trace the source and evolution of the fluids in high-sulfidation epithermal veins overprinting a porphyry copper deposit at Rosia Poieni, Romania. Despite some analytical limitations caused by the sulfide host minerals, the data demonstrate that fluids trapped in apparently cogenetic quartz and ore minerals are chemically different. Systematic changes in major and trace element ratios between liquid-vapor, vapor-rich, and brine fluid inclusion assemblages in the three minerals record an evolving fluid source at the porphyry to epithermal transition. Regarding their Cs/(Na + K) ratios, most of epithermal quartz-hosted fluid inclusion assemblages form a well-defined cluster, which coincides with the narrow range of the porphyry-stage fluids trapped in early quartz of the porphyry stockwork veins. Their Cu/(Na + K) ratios are 10 to 100 times lower compared to the pyrite-hosted inclusions and correspond to the lowest Cu/(Na + K) ratios recorded for the porphyry-stage fluids. By contrast, pyrite-hosted, vapor-rich fluid inclusions have the highest Cu/(Na + K) similar to the highest Cu/(Na + K) ratios measured in the porphyry-stage fluid inclusions. The results led to the conclusion that the gangue and ore minerals in the high-sulfidation epithermal veins at Rosia Poieni formed by successive pulses of chemically distinct hydrothermal fluids that were successively exsolved from residual melt batches of a progressively crystallizing magma at greater depth. These results are consistent with detailed textural observations, but petrography alone could not have led to this unambiguous conclusion.
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