Detrital zircon without detritus: a result of 496-Ma-old fluid–rock interaction during the gold-lode formation of Passagem, Minas Gerais, Brazil

• First U–Pb Concordia age for the Passagem de Mariana gold-lode deposit.
• All zircon grains found in the lode are detrital.
• Detrital material was obliterated, leaving behind partially dissolved zircon.

Zircon and xenotime occur in tourmaline-rich hydrothermal pockets in the auriferous lode of Passagem de Mariana, a world-class gold deposit. Zircon grains show pristine oscillatory zoning, but many of them are altered, exhibiting porous domains filled with graphite. Uranium–Pb dating of zircon, using in-situ laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry, yields ages between 3.2 and 2.65 Ga, which match those for detrital zircon of the footwall quartzite of the > 2.65-Ga-old Moeda Formation. Discordant analyses point to zircon-age resetting during the Brasiliano orogeny at ca. 500 Ma. This interpretation is supported by U–Pb dating of euhedral xenotime immediately adjacent to altered zircon within the same tourmaline pocket. The xenotime grains give a Concordia age of 496.3 ± 2.0 Ma, which is identical to that determined for monazite of a quartz–hematite vein-type deposit (i.e., jacutinga lode) in the region (Itabira), another important mineralisation style of gold. The occurrence of relatively abundant inherited detrital zircon, but absence of rock fragments in the tourmaline pocket investigated here, implies that detrital material was completely replaced by tourmaline. The graphite overprint on the altered detrital zircon attests to a reducing fluid, which was likely formed by fluid–rock interaction with carbonaceous phyllite of the Batatal Formation, the host rock of the Passagem lode.