Berthierite, a rather uncommon mineral, was found in geodes of quartz-manganocalcite vein at the 450mL, W42 point of Toyoha Mine, Hokkaido. This vein crosses the Tajima vein with almost the same trend as that of the Soya vein, representative of so called NW-SE system.
Berthierite and co-existing minerals were investigated by means of ore microscope, transmission microscope with heating stage, X-ray diffractometer and EPMA, and three stages of mineralization were discriminated as follows:
1: Pyrrhotite stage (pyrrhotite-quartz)
2: Pyrite stage (pyrite-arsenopyrite-quartz-calcite)
3: Berthierite stage (berthierite-arsenopyrite-native arsenic-Pb, Sb sulfosalt-quartz-calcite) Filling temperatures of fluid inclusions in the quartz of the first stage were within the range from 175°C to 210°C. On the basis of these data and the thermochemical data given by BARTON (1969, 1971), it is suggested that the formation temperature of the vein was about 200°C at the first stage and decreased to about 150°C at the last stage, and that the sulfur fugacity in the vein was approximately 10
-17 atm during the mineralization.
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