Fluid-rock interactions have a fundamental impact on the formation of ore minerals within ore deposits across a wide range of scales, particularly those of high economic value such as porphyry Cu-Au systems, orogenic Au deposits, volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits, and alkaline and carbonatite REE-HFSE systems. Fluid-rock interaction also facilitates mobilization of metallic materials from the source zone to the deposit, leaving a significant footprint that aids in understanding how these metals are transported and concentrated to feed the deposit. At the nano- and microscales, these processes can be recorded by the formation of natural patterns in rocks, such as the dendritic patterns, banding patterns, crack patterns, mineralogical replacement, growth or deformation patterns. The regularity of these patterns elucidates the physio-chemical environment during fluid-rock interactions. At the meso- to macroscale, fluid-rock interactions are documented in alteration zones within rocks, where chemical reactions are evidenced by the distribution and character of mineral replacement, overgrowth, and hydrothermal alteration. These phenomena petrologically reflect the processes of elemental transfer and exchange during fluid-rock interactions that contribute to the formation of ore deposits. Such natural observations enable thermodynamic and dynamic simulations of the fluid-rock interaction processes associated with metal mobilization and responsible for ore formation, deepening our understanding of underlying mechanisms. Moreover, recent advances in machine-learning-assisted analytical techniques have significantly improved our ability to uncover hidden physiochemical relationships during spatial-temporal evolution of metal source rocks, ore minerals and deposit formation.
In this session, we invite multidisciplinary contributions that investigate fluid-rock interactions associated with ore formation and metal mobilization, using field work, microstructural and petrographic analyses, geochemistry and machine-learning techniques, thermodynamic modeling and numerical modeling.