The occurrences of excess ^40Ar within a hydrothermal tourmaline is discussed in term of the analysis data of syngenetic muscovite and tourmaline from the Lushui hydrothermal tin-tungsten deposit in western Yunnan, China, using the ^40Ar-^39Ar stepwise heating technique. About 80% excess ^40 Ar was released in the last step when the tourmaline was fused, corresponding to a release of only -3% ^39 Ar （K）, which indicates that most excess ^40 Ar was held in the mineral lattice rather than in the channels parallel to the Z-axis. This suggests that the excess ^40 Ar was incorporated during crystallization and not diffused into the tourmaline during the post-crystallization history.