Relationship of Geochemical Blocks and Ore Districts: Examples from the Eastern Tianshan Metallogenic Belt, Xinjiang, China

Abstract

Eighteen geochemical blocks have been delineated by a wide-spaced deep-penetrating geochemical survey in area of 150,000 km 2 in the Eastern Tianshan metallogenic belts, Xinjiang, China. The area has 5 Cu-Pb-Zn-Ag, 3 Cu, 1 Cu-Ni, 4 Au, 3 U, 1 Pt-Pd, and 1 W geochemical anomalies or blocks. Our results indicate that six geochemical blocks match the clusters of known large ore deposits clusters or districts. Newly discovered 11 blocks may have potential for copper, gold, uranium and tungsten ore districts. The geochemical blocks with high metal concentrations are favorable for the formation of ore deposit cluster. Some geochemical blocks have no ore clusters yet. New deposits have recently been discovered in 3 of the 11 newly delineated geochemical anomalies (blocks). They may have potential for future discovery of ore deposits. Ore-forming processes commonly affect large areas of the earth crust, resulting in large scale geochemical anomalies. These large scale geochemical anomalies can only be delineated by geochemical survey in large area, or promising ore districts might even not be noticed if geochemical mapping was carried out in a small area.