Genesis and geological-geochemical characters of the Rushan gold deposit, Shandong, China

Abstract

The Rushan gold deposit, explored in recent years in the Jiaodong area, Shandong Province, is a quartz vein-type gold deposit hosted in granite. The temperature of its major mineralization episode is between 220°C and 280°C. The salinity of the ore-forming fluid is 5 % to 9% NaCl equivalent, with H2O and CO2 as the dominant gas constituents. The fluid is rich in Na+, Ca2+ and Cl−, but relatively impoverished in K+ and F−, characterized by either Ca2+ > Na+ > K+ (in three samples) or Na+ > Ca2+ > K+ (in six samples). Hydrogen and oxygen isotopes in the ore-forming fluid are highly variable with δ18 $$O_{H_2 0} $$ ranging between − 7.70‰ and 5. 97‰ and $$\delta D_{H_2 0} $$ between − 128‰ and − 71‰. The possibility of lamprophyre serving as the source of gold can be excluded in view of its low gold content on the order of 2.5 × 10−9. Rb-Sr isochron ages of the deposit and the host Kunyushan granite are ( 104.8 ± 1.5) Ma and 134.6 Ma respectively with the respective initial Sr ratios of 0. 71307 and 0.7096. It is considered that the emplacement of the lamprophyre under a tensile environment had provided sufficient heat energy to facilitate deep circulation of meteoric water by which ore metals were extracted from the Kunyushan granite through long-term water-rock reaction.