The Sichuan-Yunnan-Guizhou Pb-Zn mineralization province is an important part of the large-scale low-temperature metallogenic domainin southwestern China, and there are different opinions about the genetic type of Pb-Zn ore deposit in the area. Analyzed by LA-ICPMS with mapping for the Tianbaoshan Pb-Zn ore deposit, Huidong, Sichuan Province, China, it is researched on the trace elements in sphalerite and galena and its existing state from the deposit in the paper. The results show that the sphalerite is characterized by enrichment of Cd, Ge and depleted in Fe, Mn, In, Sn, Co, and those trace elements occur as isomorphous substitution in the sphalerite with a wide content range, related possibly to the low temperature ore-forming fluid which come from the basin brine.

In the process of long distance migration of the fluid with a long time, the different trace elements were leached out from different basement strata by the fluid, resulted in the formed sulfide minerals were rich in low temperature elements with a wide content range. There is a good positive correlation between Ge and Cu in the sphalerite, implying the replacement mechanism is nCu(2+) + Ge2+ <-> (n + 1) Zn2+, which is an important possible factor of the enrichment of Ge in the deposit. The galena is characterized by enrichment of Ag, Sb and depleted in Bi with trace Cd and Tl, which occur as isomorphous substitution in the galena, and the replacement mechanism is (Ag)(1+) + (Sb)(3+) <-> 2Pb(2+). Apart from this, our research shows that the occurrence of Ge is dominated by the sphalerite rather than the galena.

In brief, the trace elements in sulfide from Tianbaoshan Pb-Zn ore deposit are similar to that of MVT Pb-Zn deposit, and different with that of exhalative sedimentary type deposit, magmatic hydrothermal type deposit and skarn deposit. The Pb-Zn mineralization formed at low temperature (<200 degrees C), and the ore forming fluid migrated from the bottom to the top. It is suggested that the ore genesis of Tianbaoshan Pb-Zn deposit belong to the MVT deposit, while the sphalerite is rich in Cu and the galena is rich in Ag, implying a special ore forming process.

Publication name	ACTA PETROLOGICA SINICA, 32 (11):3377-3393; 2016
Author(s)	Ye Lin; Li ZhenLi; Hu YuSi; Huang ZhiLong; Zhou JiaXi; Fan HaiFeng; Danyushevskiy, Leonid
Corresponding author	YE Lin   yelin@vip.gyig.ac.cn  Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Geochem, State Key Lab Ore Deposit Geochem, Guiyang 550081, Peoples R China.

View here for the details