Abstract:
The Aijingshan strontium deposit in Lishui of Jiangsu Province, located in the eastern section of the Lishui Basin in the middle-lower reaches of Yangtze Basin metallogenic belt, is a representative of volcanic hydrothermal strontium deposits in China. The relation between the morphological characteristics of celestite and its mineralization stages is discussed in the paper by analyzing the macroscopic and microscopic morphology of celestite samples gathered from the strontium deposit. The macro morphological characteristics of celestite mainly include four forms: tabular, platy-flaky, xenomorphic fine granular and drusy. The microscopic morphology of celestite is characterized with three shapes: tabular, fine granular-flaky and amorphous. The hydrothermal metallogenesis of the Aijingshan strontium deposit undergone early and mid-late metallogenic processes in sequence, which can be further divided into four stages: celestite, pyrite-celestite, kaolinite-celestite and calcite-celestite. The mineral morphology of celestite corresponds to the metallogenic process, which shows that the tabular celestite in the macro and micro morphology is mainly formed in the celestite and pyrite-celestite mineralization stages during the early metallogenic process, while the other shapes of celestite are mostly formed during the mid-late process, i.e. platy-flaky, xenomorphic fine-granular celestite in the macro morphology, and flaky-fine granular celestite in the micro morphology are mostly formed in the kaolinite-celestite mineralization stage, drusy celestite in the macro morphology is formed in the calcite-celestite mineralization stage, while amorphous celestite in the micro morphology can be formed both in the kaolinite-celestite and calcite-celestite mineralization stages.