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 10Ar-39Ar stepwise heating technique. About 80% excess 40Ar was released in the last step when the tourmaline was fused, corresponding to a release of only -3% 39Ar (K), which indicates that most excess 40Ar was held in the mineral lattice rather than in the channels parallel to the Z-axis. This suggests that the excess 40Ar was incorporated during crystallization and not diffused into the tourmaline during the post-crystallization history.