The new cognition of the genesis of the Lifang barite deposit in Fujian province: Evidence from ore structure, mineralogy and fluid inclusions

The Lifang barite deposit in Fujian province is a large-scale independent barite deposit discovered in the southeastern coastal areas in China. It plays an important role in the sedimentary barite deposits with a more than thirty years mining history, although its genesis and mineralization epoch are still disputed. This paper undertook investigation of ore structure, electron microprobe analyses and fluid inclusion temperature measurement for barite from the Lifang barite deposit in Fujian province. The following findings and cognition are obtained: ①The hydrothermal exhalative channel phases such as tube structures, breccia structures and honeycomb structures in barite ore were found for the first time. ②The hyalophane mineral in barite ore with indicative feature of hydrothermal sedimentary genesis was found for the first time. ③140 fluid inclusions data yielded the homogenization temperature of fluid inclusion ranging from 89.3℃ to 208.5℃, with an average of 162.7℃, indicating that the Lifang barite deposit belongs to a low temperature hydrothermal sedimentary deposit. Based on evidence such as ore structure, mineralogy and fluid inclusion temperature measurement, this proposed a new cognition that the Lifang barite deposit is a "white chimney" hydrothermal sedimentary deposit. This understanding provides new important information for the study and prospecting exploration for the early Paleozoic hydrothermal deposits in South China. © 2019, Science Press. All right reserved.