A geodynamic perspective of world-class gold deposits in East Asia

The world-class gold-ore districts of South-East Russia and North-East China are located above the frontal and peripheral regions of subducted oceanic lithosphere accumulated as stagnant slabs in the mantle transition zone generated by paleo-Pacific plate subduction. The highly productive ore systems of the Aldan (South Yakutiya), Baley (Transbaikalia), and Zhao-Ye (Jiaodong) metallogenic belts which are widely separated in space, but formed at the same time, are associated with similar mechanisms of huge magma flare-ups in the Middle-Jurassic–Early Cretaceous driven by deep mantle processes. Their common features and crust–mantle interaction signature offer important clues to mantle dynamics rooted along the periphery of the subducted slabs in a mega-convergent zone in East Asia.