Retraction to: Communications Earth & Environment https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00265-w, published online 15 September 2021.
The authors have retracted this article because an error in the application of the actinolite geothermometer, used to estimate formation temperature in the Candelaria iron oxide-copper-gold deposit, undermines our conclusion that actinolite can be used as a geothermometer in iron oxide-copper-gold deposits.
The geothermometer is based on the iron content of actinolite coexisting with quartz, two pyroxenes and vapour; however, quartz and pyroxenes are rare or absent in the Candelaria deposit. This means that the geothermometer cannot be used for temperature estimation because the rocks in question did not contain the requisite equilibrium assemblage for which the actinolite geothermometer had been developed.
Our conclusion that the Candelaria iron oxide-copper-gold deposit formed during at least two distinct mineralization stages, where both stages include actinolite with distinct chemical compositions that probably crystallized over different ranges of temperature, remains supported. However, we acknowledge that actinolite compositions are not a proxy for temperature of formation in this case. Given that without this element, the study does not demonstrate the applicability of actinolite as a geothermometer in iron oxide-copper-gold deposits, the Communications Earth & Environment editors asked for a Retraction, which we accept. A revised paper, without the temperature estimations from the actinolite geothermometer, will be submitted to another journal with details added to this note if and when it is published.
The editors and authors acknowledge Mathew Steele-MacInnis, Fernando Tornos and John Hanchar for bringing the issue to their attention.
All authors agree to this retraction.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Del Real, I., Reich, M., Simon, A.C. et al. Retraction Note: Formation of giant iron oxide-copper-gold deposits by superimposed, episodic hydrothermal pulses. Commun Earth Environ 4, 115 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00774-w
Published:
Version of record:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00774-w
This article is cited by
-
Formation of giant iron oxide-copper-gold deposits by superimposed episodic hydrothermal pulses
Scientific Reports (2023)
