Low and High Sulphidation Gold Deposits

The association of gold mineralization with volcanic and geothermal hot spring activity is something that has been recognized by prospectors and geologists for a good amount of time now. We are now aware that this association is an outcome of the hot magmas that do not only take care of producing volcanic eruptions and volcanic rocks but that are in addition the source of the hot fluids that carry gold and metals like it, and may in actual fact be the starting place of gold itself. Fluids deriving from a molten magma are tremendously hot and are an under a great amount of pressure deep under the surface. When these fluids start to come up, they mix with the water that is in the surface and cause the composition of rocks to alter with which they come into contact with. This development is what is more commonly known as alteration. Sooner or later the fluids break the surface and form either acidic lakes that are known as fumaroles and that are widespread in the craters of volcanoes or dilute, neutral hot springs such as the ones at Yellowstone or the Geysers that are located in California. These two singular surface manifestations that include acidic lakes or neutral hot springs, which reflect two different fluid forms and each come about from the two diverse paths that the magma goes through when it is going up to the surface. Both form gold deposits and are known respectively as low and high sulphidation gold deposits. In both subtypes gold will for the most part be precipitated from 2.5 kilometers in depth up to the top.