Hydrothermal alteration and fluid geochemistry of the Tongonan Geothermal Field, Philippines

Abstract

The alteration mineralogy, the present-day fluid chemistry, and some fluid inclusion data are used to make inferences on the chemical changes that have occurred in the fluids during the history of the Tongonan Geothermal Field. Thermal activity in the Tongonan area began in the Miocene when emplacement of many plutons forming a batholith contact metamorphosed the overlying volcanics to hornblende homfels assemblages. In the early Pliocene, when tectonic uplift occurred along the Philippine Fault, about 2 mole % of mainly carbon dioxide and sulfur gas was released to a geothermal fluid and condensed in groundwater with geothermal steam. The condensate intensely altered the reservoir rock and formed an acid mineral assemblage, which was overprinted by a later, lower temperature, neutral-pH assemblage. Some chlorite, epidote and illite in the reservoir rock formed at temperatures up to 100°C lower than present-day temperatures possibly during the Plio-Pleistocene uplift period, i.e., the system was heating up. The assemblage garnet-anhydrite formed in fractures from a condensate after the gas had nearly completely separated from the deep, CO2-rich fluid during vigorous boiling possibly during hydrothermal eruptions. The output of gas to the geothermal fluid decreased, while the salinity (10,000 mg/kg or ~ 2 wt% NaCl) and the temperature of the geothermal fluid remained nearly constant throughout the Quaternary. When this neutral-pH, alkali chloride fluid boiled, it initially precipitated albite or epidote on the rims then anhydrite at the center of fractures at high temperatures (∼250-300°C). At lower temperatures (∼150-250°C), adularia or wairakite and later calcite were deposited as the proportion of gas in the steam condensate increased. The origin of solutes is also discussed.