Fluid and metal sources in the Mt Carbine tungsten deposit, north Queensland, Australia

Paragenetic, fluid-inclusion, stable isotope, and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd isotope studies of the Mt Carbine tungsten deposit in north Queensland provide information on the sources of the mineralizing components and record the history of fluid-rock interaction during the hydrothermal process. The ore minerals, wolframite and scheelite, are contained in quartz veins which post-date the major deformations in the Siluro-Devonian Hodgkinson formation. Mineralization was immediately preceded by the emplacement of the Mossmann batholith (280 + or - 7 m.y.). Two major stages of mineralization are present and separated by a brittle fracturing episode. The stable isotope, Sr and Nd isotope data suggest that the ore fluids during stage I and most of stage II mineralization were a mixture of magmatic water and non-magmatic water (connate or metamorphic) which had experienced a long residence time and had extensively exchanged with the sediments at high T. Subsequent mineralization events were dominated by fluids of meteoric derivation with a short residence time. The data imply that other solutes such as W, were probably derived in minor part from local country rock sources with the major contribution coming from a magmatic source related to the granite batholith. -J.M.H.