Van Tuyl Lecture (Virtual): Dr. Julie Rowland, University of Aukland

Julie Rowland, University of Aukland

Title: Aotearoa New Zealand’s Metal-transfer Superhighway and the Golden Trigger

Abstract: Like many Pacific rim countries, Aotearoa New Zealand’s mineral endowment is intimately linked to pulses of hydrothermal activity resulting from magmatism, metamorphism, and tectonism. What makes New Zealand exceptional is that it is one of the few places on Earth where such mineralizing processes can be simultaneously investigated in active and ancient hydrothermal settings. In this unique laboratory, time- and length-scales of critical geological processes can be quantified and assessed within the much larger context of a single, still evolving convergent plate boundary. 

 Here, both extensional and contractional tectonics occur along the length of an accretionary orogen, producing meshes of faults and fractures that, when subjected to elevated temperature and hydrothermal fluid flow, generate precious metal epithermal deposits in the North Island and orogenic deposits in the South Island. Importantly, these disparate styles of mineralization appear confined to a geological corridor that favours metal transport-deposition – a metal transport ‘superhighway’. This corridor is coincident with a major crustal boundary, implying a deep crustal-scale control on metal supply that is triggered episodically, resulting in diachronous distribution of gold and companion metals within the orogen. 

 In this talk I will synthesise geological and geophysical data to explore the making of New Zealand’s diverse but coherent metal belt, with a focus on the trigger that has played, and continues to play, a critical role in crustal-scale metal mobilization.​

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