Comments on “Dehydration of hot oceanic slab at depth 30–50 km: Key to formation of Irankuh-Emarat Pb-Zn MVT belt, Central Iran” by Mohammad Hassan Karimpour and Martiya Sadeghi

Abstract The Malayer-Esfahan Metallogenic belt (MEMB), in the southwestern Iran, contains numerous different types of the sediment-hosted Zn-Pb (±Ba±Ag), volcanic-sediment hosted Zn-Pb ± Ba, sideritic Fe-Mn-Pb (±Ba±Cu), and barite mineralizations. These deposits are hosted mostly in Jurassic shales and sandstones and in Early to Late Cretaceous carbonates and siltstones with minor volcanic rocks. In contrast to the orogenic-related Mississippi Valley type (MVT) deposits, the MEMB deposits formed in an extensional back-arc environment and are characterized by their stratabound and stratiform orebodies. In these deposits, silicification and dolomitization (± sericitization) are the main wall-rock alteration styles. The presence of primary laminated sulfides, fine-grained disseminated sphalerite and galena in association with framboidal pyrite, sedimentary structures in sulfide laminae and bands, and the association of some tuffaceous and volcanic rocks with sulfide mineralizations, along with replacement ore textures in the MEMB deposits are not compatible with orogenic-related MVT model for these mineralizations. These characteristics in the Cretaceous MEMB deposits are more compatible with a sub-marine hydrothermal system with sub-seafloor replacement mineralization (e.g., Irish type). Some deposits also share characteristics between Irish type and volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits, called VSHMS in this paper. The main argument against the MVT model of Karimpour and Sadeghi (2018) is that this model is not acceptable for the MEMB deposits and could not explain metallogenic aspects of the Zn-Pb (±Ba±Ag) and other mineralizations in this belt.