Structure of the Lithosphere and Its Influence on Gold Mineralisation in Southeast Kamchatka

Abstract

From the 1980s to the present, a set of geophysical methods has been implemented in southeast Kamchatka, including the earthquake converted waves method, magnetotelluric sounding, gravimetry, magnetometry, and seismology. Based on a comprehensive interpretation of the data obtained, a geological and geophysical model of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle along the Khodutka Bay–village of Nikolaevka profile was constructed. A genetic relationship has been established between dynamically active areas of the Earth’s crust with gold deposits. A hypothesis has been put forward about the division of a previously single xenoblock into two separate fragments under the action of strike-slip faults along the Nachikinskaya transverse dislocation zone. The southern fragment is represented by the Pribrezhny Terrane. To the west of the terrane is a permeable zone in which modern volcanism has occurred. The intrusion of magma and high-temperature fluids enriched in noble metal solutions into the upper layers of the crust occurs through a magma conduit formed in the palaeosubduction zone.