Geology

Oceanic crust

Collision zone

Tethys Ocean

Mantle wedge

Hotspot (geology)

Basalt

Continental crust

Geochemistry

Paleontology

Earth science

Crust

Subduction

Tectonics

Partial melting

Mantle (geology)

Continental collision

Geophysics

Science China Earth Sciences

The Tethyan metallogenic domain (TMD), as one of the three major domains in the world, extends over 10000 km from east to west, and has developed several world-class metallogenic belts, such as the Gangdese porphyry Cu belt, the Sanjiang metallogenic belt, the Iran porphyry Cu belt, the Pakistan porphyry Cu belt, the southeastern European epithermal gold deposit belt, and the Southeast Asian Sn belt. The formation and evolution of the TMD is mainly controlled by the multi-stage subduction of Tethys oceanic slabs, the opening and closing of several small ocean basins, and continent-continent collision. The Tethys oceans include the Proto-Tethys (Cambrian-Silurian), Paleo-Tethys (Carbonaceous-Triassic) and Neo-Tethys (Jurassic to Cretaceous), which in turn are formed by rifting from the Gondwana land at different times in different micro-continents. With a series of geological processes such as oceanic opening and closing, continental collision and post-collisional reworking with intraplate deformation, various types of ore deposits are developed in the TMD, including porphyry deposits, epithermal deposits, VMS deposits, chromite deposits, Sn deposits and orogenic gold deposits. The metallogenic processes of the TMD can be categorized into three stages. (1) Oceanic subduction: With the subduction of the oceanic slab and dehydration of basalt and sediments, the asthenospheric mantle was metasomatized with preliminary enrichment in metals under oxidized condition. (2) Continental subduction: Continental collision induced partial melting of the mantle wedge enriched the metals and water in mafic melts, which ascended from subarc depths to the lower crust, locally to the shallow crust for hydrothermal mineralization. (3) Post-collisional reworking: Partial melting of the mafic intrusives in the lower crust produced felsic melts under oxidized and water-rich conditions, which underwent crystal fractionation and transferred water and metals into hydrothermal fluids for mineralization. The large-scale porphyry mineralization in the TMD mainly occurs in the Miocene, which is an important scientific issue worthy of further study in the future. How is the metal enriched in the processes of gradual maturity of the crust, and how does large-scale mineralization occur in a collisional orogen where there is no subduction and dehydration of oceanic slabs anymore to supply S and Cl? These are still important questions in the study of porphyry mineralization in the Tethyan orogen. The application of hyperspectral and mineralogical studies of alteration assemblages is beneficial for prospecting and exploration in the TMD.

Porphyry mineralization in the Tethyan orogen