General characteristics and research progress of tellurium mineralization.

Tellurium is an important critical metal. As a rare and scattered element, it rarely forms independent deposits, and mainly produced in many different types of mineral deposits. These deposits mainly including magmatic copper-nickel-platinum-group-metal sulfide deposits, iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) deposits, volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits, porphyry deposits, skarn deposits, orogenic gold deposits, carlin-type gold deposits and epithermal deposits. Studies have shown that tellurium element can form hundreds of tellurium minerals. In addition to natural tellurium, most of them form telluride with Au, Ag, Pb, Bi, Cu, etc. , sulfide or selenide with S or Se, tellurite, silicate, phosphate, sulfate and other minerals, and tellurium can replace the elements of isomorphism in host minerals. Tellurium exhibits extremely uneven distribution characteristics at the scale of metallogenetic belt, deposits, and ores, and is genetically related to the main ore, such as Cu, Au, Ag, etc. The ore-forming material source of tellurium can be provided by regional mantle plume activity and magma degassing products, shallow crust magma or wall rocks. In most ore deposits, telluride mineralization consistently is deposited in the later stages of paragenetic sequences. The main mechanism of tellurium mineral enrichment and deposition are fluid mixing, water rock reaction and boiling can change the physical and chemical conditions of the system (such as pH value, sulfur fugacity, oxygen fugacity, tellurium fugacity, temperature, etc. ) , which leads to the increase of pH value, reduction of sulfur and oxygen fugacity of the fluid, and the increase of tellurium fugacity. Due to the special controlled ore-forming conditions, it is necessary to strengthen the research on the key controlling factors, ore-forming material sources, enrichment and precipitation mechanism of tellurium deposit. © 2023 Science Press. All rights reserved.