View article

Vein and shear-zone hosted gold deposits in orogenic terrains of Archean to Phanerozoic age are formed from dominantly metamorphic fluids. It is debated, however, whether normal crustal source rocks are adequate to generate economic deposits, or whether selectively gold-enriched sources such as mafic to ultramafic lavas, black shales or an input of magmatic fluid make a decisive difference between the formation of high-grade deposits and barren vein systems. As an essential baseline study in this debate, we have analyzed the metal and sulfur content of fluid inclusions in barren veins across a prograde sequence from greenschist to amphibolite facies in the Central Alpine metamorphic belt. Comparison of the analyzed fluid compositions with thermodynamic solubility calculations shows that the fluids record metamorphic dehydration, decarbonation and desulfidation of the continental crust. However, gold …