Rare earth mineralization in Bayan Obo super-large deposit: A review

doi:10.13745/j.esf.sf.2021.8.9

Abstract

Abstract:

Rare earth elements (Y, Sc, La-Lu), the “vitamins” of modern industry, are regarded as critical strategic resources in today’s society. The Bayan Obo REE-Nb-Fe deposit located in Inner Mongolia, China, is the world’s largest rare earth deposit. The diagenesis and mineralization processes of this deposit have attracted a great deal of attention from geologists around the world, and a considerable amount of research has been conducted. These researches were mainly focused on the whole-rock chronology and geochemistry of H8 ore-bearing dolomite rock, which, however, led to confusions over different metallogenic models as the deposit has rather complex ore texture and structure due to late stage deformation and metamorphism. In recent years, with the rapid technological development in modern geochemical analysis, high-precision in-situ isotopic analysis and in-situ U-Th-Pb dating can be performed directly on dolomite and rare earth minerals (such as monazite, apatite, bastnasite, etc.), which yielded valuable information on the age of the deposit as well as the source of ore-forming fluids. This paper summarizes the latest research results on the diagenesis and metallogenic model of the world class Bayan Obo REE-Nb-Fe deposit, and proposes that Mesoproterozoic (1.3 Ga) carbonatitic magmatism initiated REE mineralization and Early Paleozoic metasomatism subsequently caused REE reenrichment and reprecipitation which resulted in the accumulation of large amounts of REE minerals to form the Bayan Obo deposit.

Key words: Bayan Obo, REE deposit, REE mineralization, Mesoproterozoic carbonatite, Early Paleozoic metasomatism

CLC Number:

DENG Miao, WEI Chunwan, XU Cheng, SHI Aiguo, LI Zuoqi, FAN Chaoxi, KUANG Guangxi. Rare earth mineralization in Bayan Obo super-large deposit: A review[J]. Earth Science Frontiers, 2022, 29(1): 14-28.

Figures/Tables 7

Fig.1 Photomicrographs of H8 dolomite rock. Modified after [47].

Fig.2 Backscattered electron images of apatite from H8 dolomite rock showing three types of mineral textures. Modified after [56].

Fig.3 Chondrite-normalized REE patterns (a) and Y/Ho vs. La/Ho (b), (Ce/Nd)CN vs. ∑REE (c) and Y vs. Sr (d) diagrams for three types of apatite from H8 dolomite rock. Modified after [56].

Fig.4 Backscattered electron images of four types of monazites from H8 dolomite rock. Modified after [56].

Fig.5 Histogram of previously published formation ages of ores from the Bayan Obo deposit. Data adapted from [2,4,46-47,49].

Fig.6 C, O, Fe, Mg and S isotopic compositions of samples from Bayan Obo deposit.Data adapted from [4,41,48-49,66-72].

Fig.7 Sr-Nd-Pb isotopic compositions of ore samples from the Bayan Obo deposit. Data adapted from [20,22-23,47-49,73-74].

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