ABSTRACT

Available thermochemical data suggest that the present-day ocean waters have a great potentiality of ore deposition in a comparatively wide range of such hydrothermal conditions as might generally be encountered within the earth's crust environments. It appears probable that a majority of hydrothermal metalliferous ores in nature are the essential products of incorporated ocean waters heated and reduced in the earth's crust during processes of orogeny. It is also suggested that the ocean waters are linked with hydrothermal solutions in the earth's crust to form a single cyclic geochemical system and that the abundances of ore-forming elements in the oceans are indirectly being controlled by the solubility limits of common ore minerals existing in the uppermost earth's crust.