Controls on maximum fluid overpressure defining conditions for mesozonal mineralisation

The mesozonal environment for mineralisation (∼10±5 km depth) occurs towards the base of the seismogenic zone in the upper continental crust which, in areas of strong fluid release, acts as a stressed elastic lid containing overpressured hydrothermal fluids derived from metamorphic dehydration at depth. Au–quartz lodes in this environment are hosted by fault–fracture meshes comprising dilatant extensional and extensional-shear fractures interlinked by low-displacement faults. They form in a range of tectonic regimes but are most extensively developed in compressional/transpressional settings. A brittle failure mode plot contrasting compressional and extensional stress regimes demonstrates that: (i) high fluid overpressures are easier to sustain in compressional regimes that also allow the highest amplitude fluid-pressure cycling; (ii) dilatant mesh structures serve as high-permeability conduits only under high fluid-pressure and low differential stress in the absence of through-going cohesionless faults that are well-oriented for reactivation; and, (iii) the critical interdependence of differential stress and sustainable overpressure ensures that changes in stress state are accompanied by fluid redistribution. The specialised circumstances allowing high-flux flow of overpressured fluids are generally short-lived and are terminated by the formation of through-going, favourably oriented faults.