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Natural fracking and the genesis of five-element veins

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Abstract

Hydrothermal Ag-Co-Ni-Bi-As (five-element vein type) ore deposits show very conspicuous textures of the native elements silver, bismuth, and arsenic indicating formation from a rapid, far-from-equilibrium process. Such textures include up to dm-large tree- and wire-like aggregates overgrown by Co-Ni-Fe arsenides and mostly carbonates. Despite the historical and contemporary importance of five-element vein type deposits as sources of silver, bismuth, and cobalt, and despite of spectacular museum specimens, their process of formation is not yet understood and has been a matter of debate since centuries. We propose, based on observations from a number of classical European five-element vein deposits and carbon isotope analyses, that “natural fracking,” i.e., liberation of hydrocarbons or hydrocarbon-bearing fluids during break up of rocks in the vicinity of an active hydrothermal system and mixing between these hydrocarbons (e.g., methane and/or methane-bearing fluids) and a metal-rich hydrothermal fluid is responsible for ore precipitation and the formation of the unusual ore textures and assemblages. Thermodynamic and isotope mixing calculations show that the textural, chemical, and isotopic features of the investigated deposits can entirely be explained by this mechanism.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Peter Kolesar and Bernd Lehmann for their insightful discussions on this subject, to Michael Fettel for samples from the Odenwald deposits, to Michael Marks for help with the graphics, to Wolfgang Gerber and Matthias Reinhardt for the mineral photographs, and to Daniel Kontak and an anonymous reviewer of an earlier draft of this manuscript.

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  1. Fachbereich Geowissenschaften, Universität Tübingen, Wilhelmstr. 56, 72074, Tübingen, Germany

    Gregor Markl, Mathias Burisch & Udo Neumann

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  1. Gregor Markl
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  2. Mathias Burisch
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  3. Udo Neumann
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Correspondence to Gregor Markl.

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Editorial handling: B. Lehmann

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Markl, G., Burisch, M. & Neumann, U. Natural fracking and the genesis of five-element veins. Miner Deposita 51, 703–712 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00126-016-0662-z

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