Electron microprobe data of hydrothermal sphalerite from submarine vent systems

DOI

Experimental studies have shown that temperature, pressure, sulfur fugacity ( fS2), and oxygen fugacity ( fO2) influence the Fe content of sphalerite. We present compositional in situ data on sphalerite from submarine volcanic-hosted massive sulfide (VHMS) ores of hydrothermal vents from different plate tectonic settings and with variable host-rock compositions. Sphalerite from sediment-hosted vents has systematically higher S contents and Fe/Zn ratios than those of the sediment-starved vents, reflecting an influence of fS2 and fO2 on Fe partitioning between fluid and sphalerite. The Fe/Zn ratios of sphalerite from sediment-starved vent systems apparently increase systematically with the fluid temperatures of the corresponding vents. We conclude that the composition of sphalerite can be used to (1) distinguish between sediment-hosted and sediment-starved hydrothermal processes, and (2) estimate minimum fluid temperatures of sphalerite precipitation from inactive sediment-starved hydrothermal vent sites and fossil VHMS deposits.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.921752
Related Identifier References https://doi.org/10.1130/G35655.1
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.921752
Provenance
Creator Keith, Manuel ORCID logo; Haase, Karsten M ORCID logo; Schwarz-Schampera, Ulrich; Klemd, Reiner; Petersen, Sven (ORCID: 0000-0002-5469-105X); Bach, Wolfgang ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2020
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 1400 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (-12.372W, -25.317S, 69.233E, 27.267N); East China Sea; Indian Ocean; North Atlantic Ocean; Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 4-11°S; South Pacific Ocean; Bismarck Sea
Temporal Coverage Begin 2005-04-14T00:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2011-07-11T10:00:00Z