Mineralogical domains within gold provinces

Abstract

Mineralogical domains use hypogene minerals (i.e. minerals not modified by weathering) and related geochemical characteristics of mineral occurrences, not only ore deposits, to subdivide large mineralised regions. Their use in the Victorian gold province is described using readily available historical data and field checking, and this is a scheme that has not required modification since 1997.The Victorian province is typical of sediment-hosted hydrothermal ores in metamorphic terrains (often termed orogenic gold deposits). Five distinctly different mineral assemblages are used to subdivide all Victorian gold occurrences into eight domains up to hundreds of kilometres in length and tens of ki..