Negative Haloes and Geochemical Field Systems of Hydrothermal Deposits1

Abstract Primary haloes of hydrothermal deposits were previously considered as positive haloes. Although it has been recently suggested that primary haloes incude positive and negative ones, almost all the research work on primary haloes has still focused on positive haloes for various reasons. In order to understand the source of ore substances a number of large hydrothermal deposits related to magmatism including porphyry, skarn and vein type deposits have been studied. It has been found that negative haloes exist on the peripheries of positive haloes of a mineral deposit. On the basis of the study the authors propose the concept of the geochemical field system of ore‐forming elements of hydrothermal deposits, i. e., with the orebody as the centre outwards there occur the mineralized field, positive halo field, depleted field and background field successively.