Origin and granite alteration effects of hydrothermal fluid: isotopic evidence from fluorite veins, Co. Galway, Ireland

Abstract

The Costelloe Murvey Granite is a chemically evolved, high heat production, leucocratic component of the 400 Ma old Galway Granite batholith and is host to hydrothermal fluorite-quartz-calcite veins. A previously reported clinopyroxene ⁴⁰Ar-³⁹Ar age of 231±4 Ma obtained from a pre-mineralization dolerite dyke is reinterpreted as dating this mineralization. The hydrothermal fluid extensively altered its granite wallrocks, leading to lower Sm and Nd and higher Rb concentrations in altered granite, disturbing both its Rb-Sr and Sm-Nd isotopic systems. The ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio of the hydrothermal fluid from which fluorite and calcite precipitated ranged from 0.7101 to 0.7139. These ratios are very much lower than in the Costelloe Murvey Granite at the time of mineralization, precluding the granite as a source for more than 2% of the hydrothermal Sr. The initial ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd ratio varies between fluorite in different veins due to Nd derivation from local wallrocks, and between fluorite of petrographically distinct growth phases within a single hand specimen, highlighting the difficulty of Sm-Nd isochron dating of fluorite in cases where there are multiple sources of hydrothermal Nd. It is proposed that fluorite and calcite precipitated where hot, dilute fluids rising through the granite mixed with cooler, more saline fluids of basinal origin migrating through Lower Carboniferous limestone which then overlay the granite.