Late Paleozoic base and precious metal deposits, East Tianshan, Xinjiang, China: Characteristics and geodynamic setting

Abstract

The East Tianshan is a remote Gobi area located in eastern Xinjiang, northwestern China.In the past several years, a number of gold, porphyry copper, and Fe(-Cu) and Cu-Ag-Pb-Zn skarn deposits have been discovered there and are attracting exploration interest.The East Tianshan is located between the Junggar block to the north and early Paleozoic terranes of the Middle Tianshan to the south.It is part of a Hercynian orogen with three distinct E-W-trending tectonic belts: the Devonian-Early Carboniferous Tousuquan-Dananhu island arc on the north and the Carboniferous Aqishan -Yamansu rift basin to the south, which are separated by rocks of the Kanggurtag shear zone.The porphyry deposits, dated at 322 Ma, are related to the late evolutionary stages of a subduction-related oceanic or continental margin arc.In contrast, the skarn, gold, and magmatic Ni-Cu deposits are associated with post-collisional tectonics at ca. 290-270 Ma.These Late Carboniferous -Early Permian deposits are associated with large-scale emplacement and eruption of magmas possibly caused by lithosphere delamination and rifting within the East Tianshan. Geological settingThe East Tianshan is herein defined as that part of the Tianshan mountain range located east of the Urumqi-Kuerle highway.It is bounded (1) to the north by the Turpan-Hami ( shorter form :Tuha) basin, which is a part of the Junggar block, (2) to the south by the Aqikekuduke fault, which separates this northern belt of the Tianshan from the so-called Middle Tianshan (or Central Tianshan), and (3) to the east by the late Paleozoic Beishan rift (Figure 1).This area, which covers more than 600,000 km 2 , is also called the Jueluotage orogenic belt (Ji et al., 2000;Chen, 1999).It is a region with an abundance of metallic mineral deposits and, as a result, has become one of Xinjiang's most important areas for mineral exploration.Although Li et al. (2002Li et al. ( , 2003) ) named all parts of the mountain range east of the Urumqi-Kuerle highway, and bounded by the southern margin of Tuha basin and the northern margin of Tarim Episodes, Vol. 28, no.

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