Recognition of a Middle–Late Jurassic arc-related porphyry copper belt along the southeast China coast: Geological characteristics and metallogenic implications

Abstract

Abstract Recent exploration has led to definition of a Middle–Late Jurassic copper belt with an extent of ∼2000 km along the southeast China coast. The 171–153 Ma magmatic-hydrothermal copper systems consist of porphyry, skarn, and vein-style deposits. These systems developed along several northeast-trending transpressive fault zones formed at the margins of Jurassic volcanic basins, although the world-class 171 Ma Dexing porphyry copper system was controlled by a major reactivated Neoproterozoic suture zone in the South China block. The southeast China coastal porphyry belt is parallel to the northeast-trending, temporally overlapping, 165–150 Ma tin-tungsten province, which developed in the Nanling region in a back-arc transtensional setting several hundred kilometers inboard. A new geodynamic-metallogenic model linking the two parallel belts is proposed, which is similar to that characterizing the Cenozoic metallogenic evolution of the Central Andes.