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Native gold and gold-rich sulfide deposits in a submarine basaltic caldera, Higashi-Aogashima hydrothermal field, Izu-Ogasawara frontal arc, Japan

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Abstract

Sulfide deposits with extremely high Au concentrations (up to 275 ppm; avg. 102 ppm, n = 15), high Au/Ag ratios (0.24, n = 15), and low Cu/(Cu + Zn) ratios (0.03, n = 15) were discovered in 2015 in active hydrothermal fields at a water depth of 760 m in a basalt-dominated submarine caldera in the Izu-Ogasawara frontal arc, Japan. Native gold grains occur in massive sulfide fragments, concretions, and metalliferous sediments from a sulfide mound (40 m across and 20 m high) with up to 30-m-high black smoker chimneys. Tiny native gold grains up to 14 μm in diameter are mainly present in sulfide fallouts from chimney orifices and plumes. Larger native gold grains up to 150 μm long occur mostly as discrete particles and/or with amorphous silica and sulfides. The larger gold grains are interpreted to represent direct precipitation from Au-bearing hydrothermal fluids circulating in and/or beneath the unconsolidated sulfide mound deposits. Sulfur isotope compositions from a limited number of sulfide separates (n = 4) range from 4.3 to 5.8‰ δ34S, similar to the quaternary volcanic rocks of the arc. Barite separates have values of 22.2 and 23.1‰, close to modern seawater values, and indicate probable seawater sulfate origin. The Cu, Zn, and Pb concentrations in bulk samples of sulfide-rich rocks are similar to those of volcanogenic massive sulfides formed in continental crustal environments. The gold is interpreted to have formed by low-temperature hydrothermal activity, perhaps genetically different from systems with documented magmatic contributions or from seafloor hydrothermal systems in other island arc settings. Its presence suggests that basalt-dominated submarine calderas situated on relatively thick continental crust in an intraoceanic arc setting such as the Higashi-Aogashima knoll caldera may be perspective for gold mineralization.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our deep gratitude to Emeritus Professor Steven Scott, University of Toronto, for kindly reviewing the manuscript and also Emeritus Professor Hiroaki Kaneda, University of Tokyo, and his student assisting EPMA experiments at Toho University. We acknowledge greatly reviewers Drs. P. Mercier-Langevin and I. Ridley for critically reading the manuscript and many helpful suggestions. We greatly thank editor, Bernd Lehmann, and associate editor, Karen Kelley, for the manuscript improvement. We also thank the officers and crews of Kaiyo-maru No. 7, Kaiyo Engineering Co. Ltd., on-board scientists (T. K, R. M, T. S, T. S) from the University of Tokyo for sampling, and Dr. S. Tsukioka from JAMSTEC for on-board data acquisition. This study was carried out under the program of basic tool development for sea-floor massive sulfides supported by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, and also supported by the Cooperative Program (No. 005,2012) of Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 153-8505, Japan

    Kokichi Iizasa, Akira Asada, Katsunori Mizuno, Fuyuki Katase & Mitsuhiro Kojima

  2. JGI, Inc., 1-5-21 Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 112-0012, Japan

    Sangkyun Lee

  3. AORI, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5, Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa-shi, Chiba, 277-8564, Japan

    Nobuhiro Ogawa

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  1. Kokichi Iizasa
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  2. Akira Asada
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Correspondence to Kokichi Iizasa.

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Editorial handling: K. D. Kelley

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Iizasa, K., Asada, A., Mizuno, K. et al. Native gold and gold-rich sulfide deposits in a submarine basaltic caldera, Higashi-Aogashima hydrothermal field, Izu-Ogasawara frontal arc, Japan. Miner Deposita 54, 117–132 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00126-018-0808-2

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