Charge-and-Release Rhythms in Ore-Forming Systems: A Random Matrix Theory Test of Metallogenic Timing across Four Provinces

We test whether ore-forming pulse timing carries the level-repulsion signature of random matrix theory (RMT), via a charge-and-release hypothesis: each mineralization pulse depletes the local metal, fluid, and heat budget of an ore system, which must re-accumulate before the next pulse, imposing a minimum recurrence interval analogous to eigenvalue repulsion. Across four metallogenic provinces — Andean porphyry copper (subduction), South China Nanling W-Sn (intracontinental), Tethyan porphyry copper (collisional), and orogenic gold (metamorphic, non-magmatic) — single ore-forming sources show GOE-class repulsion (pooled spacing ratios 0.57 to 0.71, all bootstrap 95% confidence intervals excluding Poisson), while mixed configurations collapse toward Poisson. Crucially, orogenic gold — whose fluids derive from metamorphic devolatilization, not magmatism — shows repulsion too. Because no magma is involved, this cannot be inherited from magmatic-intrusion cyclicity, and it supports an intrinsic charge-release memory in the ore system itself. Together with mantle plumes, five physically unrelated deep-Earth systems are unified under one principle: single long-memory sources repel; superposed sources randomize. Fourth in a four-racetrack RMT program spanning Earth from core to crust. The compiled ages are representative literature values, not a systematic census, and GOE-versus-GUE is not resolved at present sample sizes.