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Article Dans Une Revue The American Mineralogist Année : 2022

Gold speciation in hydrothermal fluids revealed by in situ high energy resolution X-ray absorption spectroscopy

Résumé

Abstract Gold mobilization, transfer, and concentration in the Earth’s crust are controlled by hydrothermal sulfur- and chloride-bearing fluids. Yet the exact chemical identity, structure, and stability of Au-bearing species and, in particular, the respective contributions of the sulfide (HS−) and trisulfur ion (S3⋅−) ligands to Au transport lack direct in situ evidence. Here we employed high energy resolution fluorescence detection X-ray absorption spectroscopy (HERFD-XAS) on aqueous sulfate/sulfide/S3⋅−-bearing solutions at typical hydrothermal temperatures and pressures (T = 350 °C, P = 600 bar) to reveal differences in dissolved Au spectral signatures indicative of contrasting fluid-phase Au speciation as a function of acidity and redox conditions. Combined with in situ Au solubility measurements and quantum-chemical and thermodynamic modeling, our spectroscopic data provide direct evidence for the Au(HS)S3− and Au(HS)2− complexes predominant at acidic-to-neutral and alkaline conditions, respectively. Our findings thus directly confirm a recent speciation scheme for Au in aqueous S-bearing fluids established using less direct methods, and highlight an important role of the trisulfur ion in gold mobilization and concentration in hydrothermal-magmatic deposits associated with subduction zones. More generally, our results show that HERFD-XAS enables the identification of structural and coordination features in metal complexes virtually unresolvable using classical XAS techniques. By avoiding limitations of less direct techniques, our integrated high-resolution spectroscopic approach opens perspectives for studies of the speciation and solubility of gold and other metals in high T-P fluids, and potentially silicate melts, inaccessible to direct observation in nature.
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cea-04074998 , version 1 (20-04-2023)

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Gleb Pokrovski, Elsa Desmaele, Clément Laskar, Elena Bazarkina, Denis Testemale, et al.. Gold speciation in hydrothermal fluids revealed by in situ high energy resolution X-ray absorption spectroscopy. The American Mineralogist, 2022, 107 (3), pp.369-376. ⟨10.2138/am-2022-8008⟩. ⟨cea-04074998⟩
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