Cascaded Evolution of Mantle Plumes and Metallogenesis of Core‐ and Mantle‐derived Elements

Abstract  Mineral deposits are unevenly distributed in the Earth's crust, which is closely related to the formation and evolution of the Earth. In the early history of the Earth, controlled by the gravitational contraction and thermal expansion, lighter elements, such as radioactive, halogen‐family, rare and rare earth elements and alkali metals, migrated upwards; whereas heavier elements, such as iron‐family and platinum‐family elements, base metals and noble metals, had a tendency of sinking to the Earth's core, so that the elements iron, nickel, gold and silver are mainly concentrated in the Earth's core. However, during the formation of the stratified structure of the Earth, the existence of temperature, pressure and viscosity differences inside and outside the Earth resulted in vertical material movement manifested mainly by cascaded evolution of mantle plumes in the Earth. The stratifications and vertical movement of the Earth were interdependent and constituted the motive force of the mantle‐core movement. The cascaded evolution of mantle plumes opens the passageways for the migration of deep‐seated ore‐forming material, and thus elements such as gold and silver concentrated in the core and on the core‐mantle boundary migrate as the gaseous state together with the hot material flow of mantle plumes against the gravitational force through the passageways to the lithosphere, then migrate as the mixed gas‐liquid state to the near‐surface level and finally are concentrated in favorable structural expansion zones, forming mineral deposits. This is possibly the important metallogenic mechanism for gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper and other many elements. Take for example the NE‐plunging crown of the Fuping mantle‐branch structure, the paper analyzes ductile‐brittle shear zone‐type gold fields (Weijiayu) at the core of the magmatic‐metamorphic complex, principal detachment‐type gold fields (Shangmingyu) and hanging‐wall cover fissure‐vein‐type lead‐zinc polymetallic ore fields (Lianbaling) and further briefly analyzes the source of ore‐forming material and constructs an ore‐forming and ‐controlling model.