The new thermodynamic model quantitatively predicts what happens in these subduction zones. The researchers discovered that sulfur in the mantle can combine with gold, creating a stable complex that can transport large amounts of gold upward from Earth's mantle to its crust through magma.
The complex, known as a gold-trisulfur complex, "acts as an extremely effective agent to transport and concentrate" gold, the researchers write, extracting up to 100 times more gold from the mantle than areas without the fluid.
"The same types of processes that result in volcanic eruptions are processes that form gold deposits," Adam Simon, a University of Michigan professor of Earth and environmental sciences and a co-author of the study, said in a news release.
This thermodynamic model that we've now published is the first to reveal the presence of the gold-trisulfur complex that we previously did not know.
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