Origin of Mantle-Shaped Carbonatite Bodies in the Khalyuta Deposit, Western Transbaikal Region, Russia

Abstract

The western Transbaikal region is among the long known and well studied ore districts. Nevertheless, carbonatites were unknown in the region until 1990s. About four decades ago, two small outcrops of endogenic carbonatite rocks were discovered in the western sector of this region. Subsequently, one of these outcrops was identified as an epithermal fluorite mineralization in limestones, while the second outcrop was recognized as skarn lode with the barite–strontianite mineralization. Recently, based on geostructural, mineralogical, geochemical, and isotope data, we could identify these rocks as linear or fault-line carbonatites (Bulnaev and Posokhov, 1995; Bulnaev, 1997). Now these sites are known as the Arshan and Khalyuta deposits spaced 20 km apart and located at 45–47 km to the southwest and west of Ulan-Ude, respectively.