
(A
brief
description
of porphyry deposits coming soon.)Xiao, Ping, Friehauf, Kurt, Wang, Yanbin, and Wang, Cuizhi, 2010, The implication of similarities and systematic variations among the monometallic high-fluorine porphyry deposits in the East Qinling Molybdenum Belt, China [abs]: : Geological Society of America - Denver Annual Meeting (31 October –3 November 2010), Vol. 42, No. 5, p. 580.
Situated
on
the
southern
margin of the North China
Craton, mirroring
the Yan-Liao molybdenum belt on the northern margin, and with more than
5million metric tons of explored Mo metal reserves, the East Qinling
Molybdenum Belt (EQMB) is the largest molybdenum producing region in
China. Molybdenum deposits in the EQMB include porphyry Cu-Mo, porphyry
Mo, skarn Mo-W, and carbonatite deposits.
Mesoproterozoic
Xiong’er
Group
andesite
hosts
Cretaceous
molybdenum
ores
in the Dong
Gou molybdenum deposit in the eastern Qinling Mountains of Henan,
China. Current mining activity is done by hand mucking and hauling high
grade ores from shallow underground workings. Thin, discontinuous
K-feldspar veins characterize earliest mineralization styles, which are
cut by quartz-molybdenum veins associated with hydrothermal biotite
alteration of andesite. Where hairline quartz-molybdenite veins cut
feldspar phenocrysts in the andesite, K-feldspar overgrowths fill the
vein. Quartz-molybdenite veins became thicker, more continuous, and
planar as the system evolved, reflecting cooling and transition to a
more brittle strain environment. Molybdenite-barren, blue
apatite-K-feldspar veins crosscut early quartz-molybdenite and evolved
through time from apatite-dominant to K-feldspar-dominant modes with
minor molybdenum on vein margins. Thick quartz-molybdenite-pyrite veins
that crosscut barren apatite-rich veins record a second stage of
molybdenite mineralization. K-feldspar-chlorite-quartz-pyrite veins
postdate both molybdenite stages.