Product catalogue
Lower crustal resistivity signature of an orogenic gold system
Orogenic gold deposits provide a significant source of the world’s gold, but their depth of formation is contentious. One hypothesis is that orogenic gold deposits formed along crustal faults over a wide range of depths spanning sub-greenschist to granulite facies. Other authors suggest that the source is restricted to a smaller range of crustal depths (~20-30 km) and temperatures (~550⁰C) that correspond to the transition from greenschist to amphibolite metamorphic facies. Rapid burial of C and S-rich oceanic sediments and amphibolite-grade metamorphism leads to the production of large amounts of fluid in a short amount of time. In order to help discriminate between these competing hypotheses, we compiled thirty years of magnetotelluric (MT) and geomagnetic depth sounding (GDS) data across western Victoria and south-eastern South Australia. This region contains one of the world’s foremost and largest orogenic gold regions that has produced 2% of historic worldwide gold production. Three-dimensional inversion of the MT and GDS data shows a remarkable correlation between orogenic gold deposits with >1 t production and a <20 ohm.m low-resistivity region at crustal depths >20 km. Such depths are at the pressures and temperatures of greenschist to amphibolite-grade metamorphism that releases HS- ligands for Au from C and pyrite (FeS2) rich sediment interbedded with mafic oceanic rocks. Carbon is then precipitated through retrograde hydration reactions with CO2 precipitating as conductive flake graphite. Thus, our model indicates that orogenic gold in western Victoria is most likely sourced from C and FeS2 rich oceanic sediments at amphibolite-grade facies.
Citation: Heinson, G., Duan, J., Kirkby, A. et al. Lower crustal resistivity signature of an orogenic gold system. Sci Rep 11, 15807 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-94531-8
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Revision)
- 2021-02-03
- Date (Publication)
- 2024-10-01T05:32:05
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/145106
Identifier
- Codespace
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Digital Object Identifier
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Author Heinson, G.
External Contact Co-author Duan, J.
MEG Internal Contact Co-author Kirkby, A.
MEG Internal Contact Co-author Robertson, K.
External Contact Co-author Thiel, S.
External Contact
- Name
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Nature Geoscience, Scientific Reports (Sci Rep) V11, 15807 (2021)
- Purpose
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Paper for submission in Nature Geoscience
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Resource provider Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division
External Contact Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Duan, J.
MEG Internal Contact
- Spatial representation type
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Extent
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Website
-
Data Store directory containing the digital product files
Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
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EARTH SCIENCES
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Ore Deposit Petrology
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GEOPHYSICS
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Electrical and Electromagnetic Methods in Geophysics
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- Keywords
-
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
-
CC-BY
- Edition
-
4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- License
Resource constraints
- Title
-
Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
-
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice facsimile
- OnLine resource
-
Link to journal
Link to journal
- Distribution format
-
Resource lineage
- Statement
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Publication using data from AusLAMP Victoria and South Australia, as well as other legacy magnetotelluric datasets
Metadata constraints
- Title
-
Australian Government Security Classification System
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/035dbcf7-8897-44e3-8bbe-99a496cb8505
- Title
-
GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
-
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Duan, J.
MEG Internal Contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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Journal Articles and Conference Papers
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
-
Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/145106
- Date info (Creation)
- 2019-04-08T01:55:29
- Date info (Revision)
- 2019-04-08T01:55:29
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
- Title
-
Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551