Abstract
Gold solubility in silicate melts and fluids: Advances from high-pressure and high-temperature experiments
Highlights
Gold is valuable and has long been of great interest to economic geologists
We review the state of the art of high-pressure and high-temperature experimental studies on Au solubility in silicate melts and fluids, and combine recent experimental results to investigate the effects of physicochemical factors such as temperature, pressure, oxygen fugacity, sulfur fugacity, and magma composition on Au solubility in magma
It is believed that Au is predominantly present as Au1+ in magma and can be dissolved in magma as oxide (AuO0.5) (Brenan et al, 2016; Sullivan et al, 2018): Figure 1 Solubility of Au in volatile-free silicate melts as a function of oxygen fugacity and temperature
Summary
Gold is valuable and has long been of great interest to economic geologists. There are various types of Au deposits, including deposits where the formation is not directly related to magmatic activity, such as orogenic Au. In the magmatic processes associated with ore formation, Au needs to be extracted from the lithospheric mantle by the magma, which crosses the mantle-crust boundary, intrudes upward, and undergoes complex magmatic and hydrothermal evolution to form Au-bearing fluids to precipitate and mineralize Au in favorable tectonic regions. In these processes, the solubility of Au in volatilerich magmas controls the Au transport, i.e., high Au solubility facilitates the transport of large amounts of Au. In addition, high Au solubility in magma will reduce the partition coefficient of Au between sulfide and magma (Li et al, 2019), which will facilitate the formation of Au-rich magma in the source region. We summarize the physicochemical conditions favorable for the generation of Au-rich magma that form magma-hydrothermal Au deposits, providing an experimental constraint on the genesis of magmatic-hydrothermal Au deposits, especially for decratonic Au deposits
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