Zuoheng Zhang

Genesis of Meso‐Neoproterozoic Jingtieshan BIF Deposit in the Southwestern Margin of North China Craton: Petrological and Geochemical Constraints

The Neoarchean and Paleoproterozoic are the age of major banded iron formations (BIF) deposition (James, 1983; Trendall, 2002). At 1.85Ga, large-scale BIF disappeared from the geologic record and sudden reappearred after a ~1 billion years hiatus (Klein and Beukes,1993; Klein, 2005; Basta et al., 2011; Cox et al., 2013) . BIF are not only an important source of iron ore for industry, but also been used to study the evolution of life, oceans, and the atmosphere in the Archean and Proterozoic era (Lascelles, 2006; Bekker et al., 2010). Jingtieshan BIF are characterized by specularite and jasper, with higher contents of SiO2, Fe2O3, and Ba, which finally led an interpretation of Jingtieshan BIF as a Sedextype iron deposit (Xue et al., 1995, 1997; Zhou et al., 1996, 1997, 1999; Liu et al., 1998; Yang et al, 1999; Mao et al., 2003)or Superior-type BIF (Sun et al., 1998). This study presents petrologic and new geochemical data on the Jingtieshan BIF. The aim of the present discuss the genesis of Jingtieshan BIF and the deposition of such BIF.