Abstract
Fluorine-bearing minerals are uncommon in submarine exhalative ores, exhalites and associated alteration zones, probably because of the low solubility of CaF2. The Broken Hill (Australia) deposit contains fluorapatite and fluorite with one lens containing 1.35% F and greater than 3 volume % F-bearing minerals. The calcite-fluorite-fluorapatite assemblage at Broken Hill indicates that ore deposition was probably from hypersaline fluorine-bearing fluids which decreased in pH by base leaching reactions which released Ca2+ and mixing with seawater promoting the rapid and simultaneous precipitation of calcite, fluorite and fluorapatite as a result of temperature and salinity decrease and pH and [Ca2+] increase. The abundance of fluorine minerals in the Broken Hill ore and the association of F and B minerals with stratigraphically equivalent W- and Sn-bearing exhalites suggest that F complexes are important for ore transport in some exhalative systems. The Fe/Mn ratio decreases and the F/Cl ratio increases in fluorapatite in exhalites with increasing proximity to the Broken Hill deposit.
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