Tellurium Transport and Enrichment in Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide Deposits: Numerical Simulations of Vent Fluids and Comparison to Modern Sea-Floor Sulfides
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits may represent a significant future source of Te, which is a critical element important for the green energy transition. Tellurium is enriched in these settings by up to 10,000 times over its crustal abundance, indicating that fluids in sea-floor hydrothermal systems may transport and precipitate Te. The major element composition of these hydrothermal fluids is controlled by fluid-rock interaction and is well documented based on experimental, modeling, and natural studies; however, controls on Te mobility are still unknown. To better understand Te enrichment in this deposit type, numerical simulations of the mafic-hosted Vienna Woods and the felsic-hosted Fenway sea-floor vents in the Manus basin were performed to predict Te mobility in modern sea-floor hydrothermal vent fluids and Te deposition during sulfide formation. These simulations demonstrate that the mobility of Te in sea-floor hydrothermal systems is primarily controlled by fluid redox and temperature. Tellurium mobility is low in reduced hydrothermal fluids, whereas mobility of this metal is high at oxidized conditions at temperatures above 250°C. Numerical simulations of the reduced vent fluids of the mafic-hosted Vienna Woods site at the back-arc spreading center in the Manus basin yielded Te concentrations as low as 0.2 ppt. In contrast, the more oxidized model fluids of the felsic-hosted Fenway site located on Pual Ridge in the eastern Manus basin contain 50 ppt Te. The models suggest that Te enrichment in these systems reflects rock-buffer control on oxygen fugacity, rather than an enriched source of Te. In fact, the mafic volcanic rocks probably contain more Te than felsic volcanic rocks. The association of elevated Te contents in the felsic-hosted Fenway system likely reflects magmatic volatile input resulting in lower pH and higher Eh of the fluids. More generally, analysis of sulfide samples collected from modern sea-floor vent sites confirms that redox buffering by the host rocks is a first-order control on Te mobility in hydrothermal fluids. The Te content of sulfides from sea-floor hydrothermal vents hosted by basalt-dominated host rocks is generally lower than those of sulfides from vents located in felsic volcanic successions. Literature review suggests that this relationship also holds true for volcanogenic massive sulfides hosted in ancient volcanic successions. Results from reactive transport simulations further suggest that Te deposition during sulfide formation is primarily temperature controlled. Modeling shows that tellurium minerals are coprecipitated with other sulfides at high temperatures (275°–350°C), whereas Te deposition is distinctly lower at intermediate (150°–275°C) and low temperatures (100°–150°C). These predictions agree with geochemical analyses of sea-floor sulfides as Te broadly correlates positively with Cu and Au enrichment in felsic-hosted systems. The findings of this study provide an important baseline for future studies on the behavior of Te in hydrothermal systems and the processes controlling enrichment of this critical mineral in polymetallic sulfide ores.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".