Sulphur isotopes in a metamorphogenic gold deposit, Macraes mine, Otago Schist, New Zealand

The Macraes gold quartz vein deposit, New Zealand, is located in a shear zone cutting greenschist facies metasediments of the Otago Schist. The deposit has been interpreted as being metamorphogenic in origin as there is no evidence for coeval magmatic activity in the Otago Schist orogen. The immediate host rock at the Macraes deposit is pyritic (δ34S = -2.7 to -1.3 per mil ) and locally weakly graphitic schist, a rare rock type in the Otago Schist. Sulphur isotope analyses of pyrite and arsenopyrite extracts from auriferous veins and wall-rock schist provide a similar narrow range in δ34S values, from -3.0 to -1.0 per mil (n=9). The lack of isotopically depleted sulphur, the narrow range in values, and the replacement sulphide textures help discount a primary bacteriogenic origin for host-rock sulphide. Sulphide in both veins and wall rock is of hydrothermal origin. Sulphides in metasediments and metavolcanics elsewhere in the Otago Schist have δ34S in the narrow range -6 to +6 per mil. The sulphur isotope data are consistent with origin of hydrothermal sulphur within the metamorphic pile but provide no constraint on specific rock types which contributed the sulphur to the hydrothermal fluid. The study demonstrates that sulphur isotopic signatures near zero per mil can arise without any direct magmatic input into the mineralisation process. (author). 34 refs., 2 figs., 1 tab