https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-2020-5 Preprint. Discussion started: 25 February 2020 c Author(s) 2020. CC BY 4.0 License. Resolving the timescales of magmatic and hydrothermal processes associated with porphyry deposit formation using zircon U-Pb petrochronology Simon J.E. Large1*,†, Jörn F. Wotzlaw1, Marcel Guillong1, Albrecht von Quadt1, Christoph A. 5 Heinrich1,2 1Department of Earth Sciences, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland. 2Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Zurich, 8006 Zürich, Switzerland. †Current address: Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK 10 Correspondence to: Simon J.E. Large (
[email protected]) Abstract. Understanding the formation of economically important porphyry-Cu-Au deposits requires the knowledge of the magmatic- to-hydrothermal processes that act within the much larger underlying magmatic system and the timescales on which they occur. We apply high-precision zircon geochronology (CA-ID-TIMS) and spatially resolved zircon geochemistry (LA-ICP- 15 MS) to constrain the magmatic evolution of the magma reservoir at the Pliocene Batu Hijau porphyry-Cu-Au deposit. We then use this extensive dataset to assess the accuracy and precision of different U-Pb dating methods of the same zircon crystals. Emplacement of the oldest pre- to syn-ore tonalite (3.736 ± 0.023 Ma) and the youngest tonalite porphyry cutting economic Cu-Au mineralisation (3.646 ± 0.022 Ma) is determined by the youngest zircon grain from each sample, which constrains the 20 duration of metal precipitation to less than 90 ± 32 kyr. Overlapping spectra of single zircon crystallisation ages and their trace element distributions from the pre-, syn and post-ore tonalite porphyries reveal protracted zircon crystallisation together with apatite and plagioclase within the same magma reservoir over >300 kyr.