Understanding gold-(silver)-telluride-(selenide) mineral deposits

Nigel J. Cook; Cristiana L. Ciobanu; Paul G. Spry; Panagiotis Voudouris; the participants of IGCP-486

doi:10.18814/epiiugs/2009/v32i4/002

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Episodes 2009; 32(4): 249-263

Published online December 1, 2009

https://doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2009/v32i4/002

Understanding gold-(silver)-telluride-(selenide) mineral deposits

Nigel J. Cook^1,2, Cristiana L. Ciobanu^1,2, Paul G. Spry³, Panagiotis Voudouris⁴, the participants of IGCP-486

¹School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide, S.A., Australia; E-mail: nigel.cook@adelaide.edu.au
²South Australian Museum, Adelaide, S.A. Australia
³Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
⁴Department of Mineralogy-Petrology, University of Athens, 15784, Athens, Greece

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Gold-(silver)-telluride (selenide) ores occur as epithermal orogenic and intrusion related deposits. Although Te and Se are chalcophile elements and share geochemical affinity with Au, formation of selenides and other elements Ag-Au require acidic or reducing environments. The thermodynamic stability conditions for Au and Agtellurides and native tellurium indicate an epithermal environment. Analysis of mineral paragenensis, textures and compositional variation in tellurides/selenides suggest petrogenetic processes involving interaction with fluids leading to Au scavenging and entrapment in tellurides, changes in chemistry/rates of fluid infiltration and attaining equilibrium in a given assemblage.