The situation of boron resources is not promising in our country, so it is urgent to find alternative exogenous boron deposits. The Huke basin is located in the northern edge of the Qaidam basin, belonging to a "resource prospecting" area. The NWNWW Piedmont thrust and the NE fault control the formation and the distribution of the boron deposits and the mineralization points in Juhongtu and surrounding areas. The regional rock, the sedimentary and the water content have obvious positive anomalies of B, and the water is rich in B, Li and poor in Br, I, and the Σ^Ce Σ^Y ratio is close to that of the earth's crust, reflecting that the metallogenic source comes from the groundwater and the boron source rock. From the Juhongtu boron ore and the typical exogenous boron deposit, it is found that the boron ore is distributed in the upper Pleistocene series on fine grained sediments, reflecting stable sedimentary environments; the sediments show a positive change in the portrait with the granularity of clastic particle size from coarse to fine, the change of B₂O₃ containing grades from low to high and the change of the depression from the center to the edge. The strata thickness is gradually punched out from the middle to the sides. It is the first time to show that the deposit is formed in the late Pleistocene, 28 ka BP; the silicon is transformed into low temperature quartz and C opal and dilute alkali elements Li > Rb > Cs, which shows that the sinter has undergone a long-term "dehydration". Based on the carbonate sediment isotope and XRD analysis, the Juhongtu boron ore forming process is divided into three stages: I-early silicon tufa deposition stage; II- the lower boron ore initial sedimentary stage; and III-main boron ore deposition stage. The study of the formation mechanism of boron deposits in Qilian mountain area helps understanding of metallogenic processes.

Boron deposit  /  deposit features  /  prospecting direction  /  Hake Basin  /  juhongtu