## 4 Results and Discussion
### Ore-Forming Simulation Results  
The ore-forming computational simulation provides a series of parameters related to structure deformation, stress, heat, and fluid flow, which record the geodynamic conditions contributing to mineralization. Based on the proposed metallogenic model of the Xiadian and other Jiaodong gold deposits, we have chosen to focus on four critical parameters: volumetric strain, shear strain, temperature variation, and fluid divergence, to discuss the geodynamic controls on gold deposition (Figure 10). The reasons for selecting these parameters are (1) volumetric strain is related to the rock dilation or shrinkage and commonly used in understanding orebody localization in structure-hydrothermal systems, (2) shear strain reflects the shear or tensile failure degree in the strike-slip fault systems, which is relevant to the gold mineralization process, (3) temperature variation can impact the stability of gold complexes and consequently control gold deposition, and (4) fluid divergence denotes the ingress or egress of fluids in one voxel during ore-forming stage, which is crucial for understanding fluid movement during mineralization. The volumetric strain and shear strain are directly obtained by FLAC(3D), while temperature variation and fluid divergence are calculated using the Sobel operator. Here, the absolute values of temperature variation are used and the negative fluid divergence represents the fluid ingress into a voxel, while  
Figure 9: Binary plots displaying the effects of fault geometry attributes on known voxels (mostly ore-bearing) in the Xiadian gold deposit. (**a**) fault buffer (_d_F); (**b**) fault dip (gF); (**c**) dip variations (vF); (**d**,e) fault undulation at small (_wu_F) and large scales (_wb_F). positive values represent fluid egress. Although all these indices are related to gold mineralization, we have singled out volumetric strain as a key indicator to validate the modeling results by following the strategies of previous studies [13; 45; 49; 50; 99; 100]. This choice is driven by the fact that gold mineralization zones are always distinct to the surrounding rocks (non-mineralized areas) in the volumetric strain. Figure 10: 3D voxel models (left subplot) and binary plots (right subplot) displaying the effects of ore-forming simulation-related attributes on known voxels (mostly ore-bearing) in the Xiadian gold deposit. (**a,b**) Volumetric strain; (**c,d**) Shear strain; (**e,f**) Temperate variations (absolute values); (**g,h**) Fluid divergence. Note the arrows in a show the interval distribution of high volumetric strain. The simulation results show that the known gold orebodies in Xiadian are generally consistent with the distribution of high volumetric strain, moderate shear strain, high temperature variation, and negative fluid divergence (Figure 10). Specifically, a majority of Au-bearing voxels are concentrated within the volumetric strain range of 0.1% to 0.2%, and very minor units (shallow JJY) exhibit volumetric strain exceeding 0.2% (Figure 10a,b). This observation suggests that auriferous fluids tend to preferentially flow into areas characterized by relatively high dilation (permeability improved, tectonic stress releasing). But the low dilatation and extremely high dilatation may have limited ability of fluid transporting or trapping, respectively, resulting in the weak mineralization. This is also evidenced by the close association between thick gold orebodies and interval distribution of high and low dilatations in the No. 7 orebodies (Figure 10a). This distribution pattern of gold and volumetric strain underscores the combined influence of dilation and shrinkage as controlling factors in the ore-forming processes. The shear strain presents a similar correlation with gold amounts as volumetric strain (Figure 10c,d). Most Au-bearing units have a shear strain from 0.01 to 0.02. Overall, the JJY and DBZZ have higher shear strain values than No. 2 and 7 orebodies, which is reflected in the bimodal distribution characteristic in Figure 10d.