Zhiguo Cheng

Carboniferous porphyry Cu–Au deposits in the Almalyk orefield, Uzbekistan: the Sarycheku and Kalmakyr examples

ABSTRACT The Almalyk porphyry cluster in the western part of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt is the second largest porphyry region in Asia and hence has attracted considerable attention of the geologists. In this contribution, we report the zircon U–Pb ages, major and trace element geochemistry as well as Sr–Nd isotopic data for the ore-related porphyries of the Sarycheku and Kalmakyr deposits. The zircon U–Pb ages (Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS)) of ore-bearing quartz monzonite and granodiorite porphyries from the Kalmakyr deposit are 326.1 ± 3.4 and 315.2 ± 2.8 Ma, and those for the ore-bearing granodiorite porphyries and monzonite dike from the Sarycheku deposit are 337.8 ± 3.1 and 313.2 ± 2.5 Ma, respectively. Together with the previous ages, they confine multi-phase intrusions from 337 to 306 Ma for the Almalyk ore cluster. Geochemically, all samples belong to shoshonitic series and are enriched in large-ion lithophile elements relative to high field strength elements with very low Nb/U weight ratios (0.83–2.56). They show initial (87Sr/86Sr)i ratios of 0.7059–0.7068 for Kalmakyr and 0.7067–0.7072 for Sarycheku and low εNd(t) values of −1.0 to −0.1 for Kalmakyr and −2.3 to 0.2 for Sarycheku, suggesting that the magmas were dominantly derived from a metasomatized mantle wedge modified by slab-derived fluids with the contribution of the continental crust by assimilation-fractional-crystallization process. Compared to the typical porphyry Cu deposits, the ore-bearing porphyries in the Almalyk cluster are shoshonitic instead of the calc-alkaline. Moreover, although the magmatic events were genetically related to a continental arc environment, the ore-bearing porphyries at Sarycheku and Kalmakyr do not show geochemical signatures of typical adakites as reflected in some giant porphyry deposits in the Circum-Pacific Ocean, indicating that slab-melting may not have been involved in their petrogenesis.

Palaeogene Sediment-hosted Pb–Zn deposits in SE Asia: the Uragen example

ABSTRACT The strata-bound Pb–Zn deposits in western China share many similarities and are controversial in genesis. The large Uragen Pb–Zn deposit is located in the northwestern part of the Kashgar sag, southwest of Tarim Basin, Xinjiang, NW China. With the 980.9 Mt tons of Pb–Zn ores at 0.45%Pb and 2.61%Zn, it is the third largest known Pb–Zn deposits in China. The orebodies are stratiform and stratabound and are predominantly controlled by the Uragen syncline that has an E–W axial trend. Mineralization mostly occurs in sandstones and conglomerates of the Lower Cretaceous Kezilesu Group (K1kz), with a small amount in the Palaeocene limestone. The main ore types consist predominantly of disseminated ore with minor massive ore, veined ore, and breccia ore. The primary metal minerals are composed of sphalerite, galena, pyrite, and minor arsenopyrite and chalcopyrite, and the supergene metal minerals include smithsonite, cegamite, beudantite, jarosite, limonite, and minor hemimorphite. The gangue minerals are composed of dolomite, calcite, quartz, celestite, and gypsium. Our new Rb–Sr isotopic analyses on the separated sphalerite, galena yielded an isochron age of 55.1 ± 1.6 Ma, coeval to an isochron age of 55.4 ± 2.2 Ma by Sm–Nd isotopic data. This age is much younger than the youngest ore-bearing strata (E11, 65.5–61.7 Ma), arguing for an epigenetic origin. The calculated initial 87Sr/86Sr ratio of sulphides is 0.710322, which is much lower than those of basement formation, regional bituminous sandstone, and even the ore-bearing strata, but higher than the regional mantle-derived, alkaline volcanic rocks and marine carbonate. The calculated initial 143Nd/144Nd ratio of calcite and galena is 0.512081. These data suggest that the metals may be chiefly derived from crust, possibly from the minor contribution of mantle materials. Our new-age data, in combination with the previous data, suggest that there probably is a huge medium-low-temperature epigenetic stratabound Pb–Zn belt, which is possibly correlated to the India–Asia collision event.