Paradoxically lowered oxygen isotopes of hydrothermally altered minerals by an evolved magmatic water

It has been well known that the influxing meteoric water can hydrothermally lower oxygen and hydrogen isotopes of rocks and/or minerals during continental magmatic or metamorphic processes in certain appropriate cases. Its opposite, however, is not implicitly true and needs independent testing. In terms of a novel procedure recently proposed for dealing with thermodynamic re-equilibration of oxygen isotopes between constituent minerals and water from fossil hydrothermal systems, the initial oxygen isotopes of water (delta O-18(W)i) are theoretically inverted from the early Cretaceous post-collisional granitoids and Triassic gneissic country rock across the Dabie orogen in central-eastern China. Despite ancient meteoric waters with low delta O-18(W)i value down to - 11.01 +/- 0.43% (one standard deviation, 1SD), oxygen isotopes of hydrothermally altered rock-forming minerals from a granitoid were unexpectedly but concurrently lowered by an evolved magmatic water with mildly high delta O-18(W)i value of 2.81 +/- 0.05% at 375 degrees C with a water/rock (W/R)(c) ratio of 1.78 +/- 0.20 for the closed system. The lifetime of fossil hydrothermal systems studied herein is kinetically constrained to no more than 1.2 million years (Myr) via surface-reaction oxygen exchange in the late-stage of continental magmatism or metamorphism. Thereby, caution should be paid when lowered oxygen isotopes of hydrothermally altered rocks and/ or minerals were intuitively and/or empirically inferred from the external infiltration of the purely meteoric water with a low delta O-18(W)i value alone.

Automated summary

It has been found that while ancient meteoric waters have low oxygen isotopes, the oxygen isotopes of hydrothermally altered rock-forming minerals from heated granitoids are unexpectedly lowered by evolved magmatic water with higher oxygen isotopes. The study also revealed that the lifetime of the studied fossil hydrothermal system is no more than 1.2 million years.