Late-Variscan antimony mineralization in the Rheinisches Schiefergebirge, NW Germany: Evidence for stibnite precipitation by drastic cooling of high-temperature fluid systems

Antimony-rich vein mineralisation is widespread in the German part of the Variscan orogenic belt. Mineralogical investigation of a representative suite of these deposits, coupled with fluid inclusion characterisation and microthermometry, permits a reconstruction of their genetic evolution. Two structural settings host antimony mineralisation: the cores or flanks of anticlinal zones and major lithological contrasts. Channelled migration of geothermal fluids through permeable rock sequences and later stagnation of fluids in cap-rock situations inside the anticlinal zones led to mineral deposition. The mineralising event is interpreted as relating to input of deep-sourced fluids during late-orogenic exhumation at the transitional stage between collision tectonics and the late-Variscan extensional regime. Fluid inclusion data, chlorite geothermometry and the presence of meneghinite as a characteristic Pb-Sb-sulphosalt mineral in a number of vein systems allows constraints on model P-T-conditions at the onset of mineralisation to be made. These are as high as 390 to 440 °C at 0.6-1.0 kbar for the Saarsegen, Apollo and Schöne Freundschaft deposits, with lower temperatures of 320-340 °C being obtained for the Spes deposit. The fluid inclusion data indicate drastic fluid cooling during the mineralising event; minimum temperatures of approximately 150-220 °C are obtained for all deposits at the end of vein quartz formation, which coincided with deposition of stibnite and most of the Pb-Sb sulphosalts. Besides the formation of extensional quartz-stibnite-Pb-sulphosalt veins, the mineralising, low-salinity NaCl-KCl-rich high-temperature tectonic brines have overprinted sulphide assemblages within earlier siderite-(Cu)-Pb-Zn veins. This has led to replacement reaction textures and remobilisation of sulphide components within the vein systems. In contrast with the earlier siderite-(Cu)-Pb-Zn veins, neither the quartz-stibnite-sulphosalt or the (Cu)-Pb-Sb sulphosalt assemblages were affected by Variscan deformation. Rather, they display characteristic extensional features crosscutting all earlier structures and can thus be assigned to a later phase of mineralisation. Fluid composition characteristics and structural criteria indicate formation in the latest part of the Variscan mineralisation cycle; a post-Variscan genesis being rejected on grounds of conspicuously diverging fluid characteristics. A comparison of antimony deposits in the Rheinisches Schiefergebirge with other late-orogenic deposits elsewhere in the European Variscan belt indicate a significant number of shared features, enabling them to be placed into a common model related to the onset of late-Variscan brittle extensional tectonics.