A carbon and oxygen stable isotopic study of the siderite alteration in the Black Ridge gold deposit,Clermont, central Queensland

Gold mineralisation in the Black Ridge gold deposit, Clermont, central Queensland is associated with extensive siderite alteration and is most concentrated along a locally sheared unconformity between the Proterozoic? Anakie Metamorphics and the overlying basal conglomerates of the Permian Blair Athol Coal Measures. The carbon and oxygen isotopic compositions of 49 siderite specimens from all rock units show a systematic variation spatially related to the unconformity. The δ ¹³C values of siderite decrease with depth from about 0 to ?19‰, while the siderite δ ¹⁸O values of siderite from the overlying conglomerates are lighter (average 20.5‰) than those from the underlying Anakie Metamorphics (average 23.5‰); both isotopes show the largest variations in the samples from the unconformity itself. The data are best interpreted as the result of the mixing of two isotopically and thermally distinct fluids. The upper, cooler fluid has a marine signature and was derived from the pore water of the conglomerate. The lower, geothermal fluid, which carried most of the gold, was not locally derived, but was probably modified in the upper part of the Anakie Metamorphics as a consequence f geothermal gradients imposed by instrusive rocks common throughout the Clermont area. Mixing of the two fluids along the unconformity led to gold solubility in the geothermal fluid dropping more than four orders of magnitude causing gold mineralisation there.