Fluid systems and mineralization in the north German and Polish basin

The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.comThe North European Basin hosts mineral deposits like the Kupferschiefer and the Mississippi Valley Type deposits in the Silesian sub-basin in Poland. The basement to this basin, exposed in the Harz Mts and in the Flechtingen and Calvörde Blocks, contains Mesozoic Pb–Zn vein mineralization and barite–fluorite deposits as well as massive hematite veins in the Rotliegend volcanics. A comparison of the mineralizing models of these deposits with results from a basin-wide petrographic, fluid inclusion and stable isotope study shows that the genesis of the mineral deposits can be explained by fluid systems that were active during different stages of basin evolution. These comprise syn- to post-magmatic fluids derived from or mobilized in the course of the Rotliegend magmatism, fluids convecting in the Rotliegend units during the extensional basin subsidence in the Permo-Triassic and originating from progressive devolatilization of the basin sequence and fluids derived from the overlying Zechstein evaporites. Deep-reaching fault systems developing during the Cretaceous tectonic reactivation enhanced fluid percolation from the surface to the deep sections of the basin sequence. Identification and correlation of these fluids across the basin and in the mineralizations provide the base for a basin-wide metallogenetic model.A. Schmidt Mumm, M. Wolfgram