Exhalative Lead‐Zinc Deposits in Shallow Sea, Southern Xicheng Belt, Gansu Province

AbstractSEDEX‐type lead‐zinc deposits in the southern belt of the Xicheng Devonian basin, Gansu Province has been already identified. However, the sedimentary environment of the limestone and philite of the Xihanshui Group within which the lead‐zinc deposits occur is littoral and shallow sea. This is different from those in the northern belt such as the Changba‐Lijiagou lead‐zinc deposits, which were formed in deep sea. The reef and bioclastic limestone are widespread in the southern belt. Particularly they are associated with lead‐zinc ores and there are no striae and banding but massive or disseminated structures. It is discovered that the black chimney consists of sphalerite, ankerite, pyrite and galena, in which black, coarse and radial sphalerite occurs as irregularly veins or cylindricality with a width of 10–40 cm in the center, and it is surround by fine ankerite and minor celestite with ribbon structure. The immediate wall rock of the chimney, reef limestone, was unaltered and the outside reef and bioclastic limestone were intensively silicified. Those silicified reef and bioclastic limestone host disseminated lead‐zinc ores of the Luoba and Bijiashan type. It is concluded that the exhalative system occurred in a shallow sea in the Givetian of the middle Devonian. Brine is boiled due to low pressure, and a great deal of lead and zinc was dispersed in the interface between the limestone and phyllite and formed a source bed. In the Triassic period, meta‐hydrothermal fluids leached and extracted metals from the source bed, and then moved and mineralized in open space such as arches and inverse limbs of anticlines, and formed massive and vein ores such as the Jianyagou and Dengjiashan type deposits.