Contrasting coeval paragenesis of gold and scheelite in an orogenic hydrothermal system, Macraes mine, New Zealand

The Macraes deposit (>10 Moz resource) is a Cretaceous orogenic system hosted in the Hyde-Macraes Shear Zone (HMSZ) which was mineralised under lower greenschist facies during later stages of lower greenschist facies metamorphism of host metasedimentary schists. Gold is encapsulated primarily in sulphides that have replaced silicates in ductile shears that are focussed in micaceous rocks. The shears anastomose around structurally competent lenses, and were enhanced by hydrothermal graphite deposition and alteration of albite to muscovite. In contrast, scheelite with minor auriferous sulphides occurs in multigenerational quartz veins that filled fractures in competent lithologies. Hence, scheelite was deposited coevally with gold, from the same hydro thermal fluid, but in different structural settings from most gold at all scales from millimetres to hundreds of metres. Consequentially, there is weak correlation between Au and W at all scales in the deposit Multigenerational gold and scheelite mineralisation occurred during progressive deformation in the shear zone in two contrasting structural and mineralogical styles in syn-deformationally weakening gold-bearing micaceous shears, and in syn-deformationally hardened competent rocks that became silicified and veined with quartz and scheelite. Hydro thermal fluid flow in the gold-bearing shears occurred at the grain boundary, microshear, and microfracture scales, and was slow (<1 m/year), continuous, and pervasive. In contrast, vein formation in more competent lithologies was episodic, locally rapid (> hundreds of m/year), and was controlled by fracture permeability. The Au and W enrichment in the Macraes deposit resulted from regional scale metal mobility, driven by coeval recrystallisation in higher-grade (upper greenschist to amphibolite fades) metamorphism that persisted structurally below the Macraes deposit for at least 10 Ma after mineralisation ceased. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.