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A preliminary study of rare-metal mineralization in the Himalayan leucogranite belts, South Tibet

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Abstract

The Himalayan leucogranite occurs as two extensive (>1000 km) E-W trending belts on the Tibetan Plateau with the unique features. The leucogranite comprised biotite granite, two-mica/muscovite granite, tourmaline granite and garnet granite, which have been identified in previous studies, as well as albite granite and granitic pegmatite that were identified in this investigation. Fifteen leucogranite plutons were studied and 12 were found to contain rare-metal bearing minerals such as beryl (the representative of Be mineralization), columbite-group minerals, tapiolite, pyrochlore-microlite, fergusonite, Nb-Ta rutile (the representative of Nb-Ta mineralization), and cassiterite (the representative of Sn mineralization) mainly based on the field trip, microscope observation and microprobe analysis. The preliminary result shows that the Himalayan leucogranite is commonly related to the rare-metal mineralization and warrants future investigation. Further exploration and intensive research work is important in determining the rare-metal resource potential of this area.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to appreciate the comments from two anonymous reviewers that helped us to considerably improve the manuscript. We wish to thank Dr. Saskia Erdmann for polishing the language. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants Nos. 41230315 and 41130313) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grants No. 020614380057).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Mineral Deposits Research, School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    RuCheng Wang, Lei Xie, Wen Lai & Chen Liu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    FuYuan Wu, XiaoChi Liu, JiaMin Wang & Lei Yang

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  1. RuCheng Wang
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  2. FuYuan Wu
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  3. Lei Xie
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  4. XiaoChi Liu
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  7. Wen Lai
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  8. Chen Liu
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Correspondence to RuCheng Wang.

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Wang, R., Wu, F., Xie, L. et al. A preliminary study of rare-metal mineralization in the Himalayan leucogranite belts, South Tibet. Sci. China Earth Sci. 60, 1655–1663 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-017-9075-8

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