40Ar/39Ar geochronological constraints on the formation of the Dayingezhuang gold deposit: New implications for timing and duration of hydrothermal activity in the Jiaodong gold province, China

China's largest gold resource is located in the highly endowed northwestern part of the Jiaodong gold province. Most gold deposits in this area are associated with the NE- to NNE-trending shear zones on the margins of the 130–126Ma Guojialing granite. These deposits collectively formed at ca. 120±5Ma during rapid uplift of the granite. The Dayingezhuang deposit is a large (>120t Au) orogenic gold deposit in the same area, but located along the eastern margin of the Late Jurassic Linglong Metamorphic Core Complex. New 40Ar/39Ar geochronology on hydrothermal sericite and muscovite from the Dayingezhuang deposit indicate the gold event is related to evolution of the core complex at 130±4Ma and is the earliest important gold event that is well-documented in the province. The Dayingezhuang deposit occurs along the Linglong detachment fault, which defines the eastern edge of the ca. 160–150Ma Linglong granite–granodiorite massif. The anatectic rocks of the massif were rapidly uplifted, at rates of at least 1km/m.y. from depths of 25–30km, to form the metamorphic core complex. The detachment fault, with Precambrian metamorphic basement rocks in the hangingwall and the Linglong granitoids and migmatites in the footwall, is characterized by early mylonitization and a local brittle overprinting in the footwall. Gold is associated with quartz–sericite–pyrite–K-feldspar altered footwall cataclasites at the southernmost area of the brittle deformation along the detachment fault. Our results indicate that there were two successive, yet distinct gold-forming tectonic episodes in northwestern Jiaodong. One event first reactivated the detachment fault along the edge of the Linglong massif between 134 and 126Ma, and then a second reactivated the shears along the margins of the Guojialing granite. Both events may relate to a component of northwest compression after a middle Early Cretaceous shift from regional NW–SE extension to a NE–SW extensional regime.