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Fahlores compositional zoning in a porphyry-epithermal system: Biksizak occurrence, South Urals, Russia as an example

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Abstract

Variations in the chemical composition of fahlores at the Biksizak occurrence, Birgilda-Tomino ore cluster, South Urals has been studied. Carbonate replacement base-metal mineralization is related to the Paleozoic porphyry-epithermal system. The composition of fahlores ranges from Fe-rich tennantite to Znrich tetrahedrite with variable content of Ag. The grains of fahlores are complexly zoned with a progressively increasing concentration of Sb and Ag over time. A strong positive correlation between Sb and Ag has been established. On a diagram of Ag/(Ag + Cu) versus Sb/(Sb + As), the compositions of fahlores are fitted by lines with individual slope for each sample. The slope of lines corresponding to the samples from the eastern location located close to the intrusion of porphyry diorite that is the center of porphyry-epithermal system is the lowest, whereas that corresponding to the samples from the western location more than one km distant of the center is the highest. It is shown that the composition of fahlores and its evolution could be used as an important exploration guide for porphyry-epithermal ore-forming systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geology of Ore Deposits, Petrography, Mineralogy, and Geochemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Staromonetny per. 35, Moscow, 119017, Russia

    O. Yu. Plotinskaya

  2. Institute of Geology and Geochemistry, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pochtovy per., 7, Yekaterinburg, 620075, Russia

    A. I. Grabezhev

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, Center for Russian and Central EurAsian Mineral Studies (CERCAMS), Natural History Museum Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK

    R. Seltmann

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  1. O. Yu. Plotinskaya
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  2. A. I. Grabezhev
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  3. R. Seltmann
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Correspondence to O. Yu. Plotinskaya.

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Original Russian Text © O.Yu. Plotinskaya, A.I. Grabezhev, R. Seltmann, 2015, published in Geologiya Rudnykh Mestorozhdenii, 2015, Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 48–70.

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Plotinskaya, O.Y., Grabezhev, A.I. & Seltmann, R. Fahlores compositional zoning in a porphyry-epithermal system: Biksizak occurrence, South Urals, Russia as an example. Geol. Ore Deposits 57, 42–63 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1075701515010031

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