Discovery and significance of the IOA- type Taertage iron deposit in the Awulale iron metallogenic belt in Xinjiang, China
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    Abstract:

    The Taertage iron deposit is a medium- sized iron deposit in the Awulale submarine volcanic iron metallogenic belt in the Western Tianshan, Xinjiang, China. It occurs in lenticular form at the top of trachyandesite and is of great significance in revealing the relationship between iron deposits and intrusive rocks in submarine volcanic rocks.The ore of the deposit is characterized by porphyritic, disseminated, spherical, miarolitic structures and develops typical magnetite- apatite assemblage, which basically does not contain sulfides. The exsolution texture composed of banded and leaf- like ilmenite and titanium oxide is developed in the magnetite, and a small amount of accessory minerals such as titanite, thorite and fluorite coexist with it. The geological characteristics of Taertage indicate that the deposit is a typical IOA(Iron oxide apatite)- type iron deposit related to alkali- rich intermediate intrusive rocks. The zircon SHRIMP U- Pb isotopic ages for wall- rock dacite, ore- bearing trachyandesite and post- mineralized syenogranite are 311.3±1.4 Ma, 304.7±2.9 Ma and 301.1±2.8 Ma respectively, and a LA- ICP- MS U- Pb isotopic dating on titanite which paragenetically associated with magnetite yields two weighted mean ages of 302.3±4.0 Ma and 303.7±4.2 Ma, which represents the age of iron mineralization.The highly consistency between age of ore- bearing trachyandesite and age of iron mineralization further confirms that the Taertag iron deposit was formed in the late Late Carboniferous. According to geological characteristics, this paper supports that the Taertage iron deposit is formed by the accumulation of iron- rich volatiles in the top of the trachyandesite, and proposes a volatile- rich pond in the top of ultra- hypabyssal intrusion model for genesis of the Taertage iron deposit, specifically the alkali- rich intermediate ultra- hypabyssal emplacement of intrusion leads to rapid accumulation of volatiles in its top which form multiple iron- rich and volatile- rich pond. Then, magnetite is rapidly crystallized during the consolidation of the intrusion. The determination of the genesis in Taertage iron deposit not only indicates that there may be a genetic relationship between the submarine volcanic iron ore and the IOA- type iron ore, but also suggests that there is a potential to explore IOA- type iron deposit in submarine volcanic iron metallogenic belt.

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SONG Xuelong, DUAN Shigang, JIANG Zongsheng.2023. Discovery and significance of the IOA- type Taertage iron deposit in the Awulale iron metallogenic belt in Xinjiang, China[J]. Acta Geologica Sinica,97(7):2241-2260

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History
  • Received:November 03,2022
  • Revised:November 24,2022
  • Adopted:November 26,2022
  • Online: June 21,2023
  • Published: