Hydrothermal ore deposits in collisional orogens.

Hydrothermal ore deposits at convergent plate boundaries represent extraordinary metal enrichment in the continental crust. They are generally associated with felsic magmatism in extensional settings at high thermal gradients. Although their formation is common during accretionary orogeny, more and more ore deposits have been discovered recently in the collisional orogens of China. Because collisional orogeny was operated in a compressional regime at low thermal gradients, it is not favorable for mobilization of ore-forming elements and thus for the production of hydrothermal ore deposits. Nevertheless, continental collision is generally preceded by oceanic subduction, which enables the preliminary enrichment of ore-forming elements in the mantle wedge due to chemical metasomatism by subducting slab-derived fluids. This gave rise to metal pre-enriched domains in the overriding lithosphere, which may be reactivated by extensional tectonism for hydrothermal mineralization either immediately during accretionary orogeny or at a later time during and after collisional orogeny. It is these tectonic processes that have resulted in the progressive enrichment of ore-forming elements through the geochemical differentiation of the subducting oceanic crust, the metasomatic mantle domains and the mafic juvenile crust, respectively, at different depths. Finally, the reactivation of metal pre-enriched domains by continental rifting in the orogenic lithosphere is the key to the metallogenesis of collisional orogens.