77
about the world’s deposits in English, a
The Geology and
Tectonic Settings of
China’s Mineral
Deposits
by Franco Pirajno
Springer Science + Business Media
Dordrecht, 2013. 679 p.
ISBN 978-94-007-4443-1
Price: Euro 120.
China is a voracious consumer and
importer of metals: in 2010 it imported 619
Mt of iron ore and around 12 Mt of contained
copper (even some antimony!). This and the
rapid investment into overseas ventures are
responsible for the public perception of China
as being poor in mineral resources. This is
far from the truth. In 2011, according to the
U.S. Geological Survey Minerals Yearbook
data, China has been the #1 world producer of
the following metals (percentages of the
world’s production are in brackets): Rare earths
(97%); antimony (88.7%); tungsten (83%);
mercury (72.5%); bismuth (70.6%); lead
(49%); tin (43.5%); iron ore (42.9%);
aluminium (40.8%); molybdenum (37.6%);
zinc (31.5%); and gold (12.15%). It has the
world’s largest endowment of Sb, W, Sn, REE,
Be and Mo and world’s largest deposits or
districts of Sb, Bi, Be, REE, Sn and W.
It is clear that a sound knowledge of the
Chinese metal sources (deposits) and their
geological setting is essential for international
geologists who could greatly extend their
inventory of exploration models targeted inside
and outside of China, as well as for a variety of
mining analysts, commodity specialists,
geopoliticians, and others. The Chinese have a
great comparative advantage as they can read
about the Chinese deposits in original and
Episodes Vol. 36, no. 1
Amsterdam). The Pirajno’s book fills this gap.
relatively “easy” language compared with
Mandarin. The rest of the world’s readers
have to rely on English translations.
China has a rich history of discovery and
utilization of the “classical” metals (Sn,
Au, Hg, Cu) going back to the earliest
dynasties. Some “modern” metals (W, Sb),
mostly for export, were found and developed
in the early 1900s. Many “technology” metals
(Mo,REE,U,Bi,Be,etc.) have been discovered
by the numbered “geological parties” during
the People’s Republic era, initially under the
Soviet tutelage and later by Chinese teams
alone, and they contributed to fuelling the
phenomenal Chinese industrial growth. The
rate of minerals discovery has been significant
and whole new districts and metallogenic
province have been identified and developed
(for example the East Qinling Mo province
with 8.5 Mt of Mo endowment now exceeds
the United States’ Rocky Mountain Mo
province of about 6.5 Mt Mo). This trend
continues.
The information export, however, lagged
behind. While the internal Chinese literature
generally kept pace with the progress
providing adequate descriptions of mineral
deposits and their geology (minus the topics
subject to censorship like locations, tonnages,
grades), little has come out in English; as late
as in the 1980s information on the important
Jiangxi tungsten province had to rely on a
1943 paper in Economic Geology and some
more recent Russian translations and reviews.
This started to change, in parallel with the
“China opening” and new economic policies,
resulting in accelerating industrial growth.
The China-World exchange has greatly
increased since the 1980s with Chinese
nationals studying at Western universities
(and publishing papers in English together
with their research supervisors), with
numerous symposia held in China, and with
a great modernization and internationalization
of the Chinese mining and research. A number
of papers on Chinese mineral deposits and
general geology has been published in the past
twenty years in western journals (especially
in the Ore Geology Reviews and Mineralium
Deposita) so that persistent reader can now
achieve a great deal of literacy in these topics.
But the references are scattered and often
difficult to get. There was a pressing need for
a comprehensive treatment of the Chinese ore
geology in a book form, not fully addressed
by the five volume set of Mineral Deposits
of China (1900-1996) and by the “Mineral
Facts of China” edited by Zhu (2007, Elsevier
The book has eight chapters of uneven
length and an epilogue. The introductory
Chapter 1 briefly summarizes the rarely
realized mineral strength of China in course
of its 8000 years history of mining and ore
discovery, and it provides a brief overview
of the chapters that follow. Chapter 2 is
“China’s Tectonic Framework in the Global
Context” that treats the bewildering
complexity of the Chinese geology in the
Euro-Asian context, as an introduction to the
subsequent chapters organized by style,
timing and regions (cratons, then orogenic
belts, then large igneous provinces and finally
basins) where more details are provided.
Chapters 3 through 8 provide in-depth
coverage of the North China and Tarim
cratons (#3); Yangtze Craton, Cathaysia and
South China Block (#4); orogenic belts in
southern, central and north-eastern China (#
5); orogens in the west and northwest (# 6);
large igneous provinces (#7); and Chinese
volcanic-sedimentary and sedimentary basins.
After a brief abstract, each chapter devotes
some 20-30% of space to geology that is
heavy on geodynamics like timed plate
motions, collisions, extensions, sedimentation
and magmatism, whereas the rest deals with
“mineral systems” and metallogenesis. A
mineral system is a regional entity
characterized by a prominent association of
ore metals (e.g. REE-Nb-Fe), style/type (e.g.
porphyry Cu-Mo) in the framework of an
association of genetically related rocks and
structures, with a shared history of geo-
dynamic evolution.
In writing the book Franco Pirajno, a
geoscientist “sans frontieres”, relied on his
considerable insider knowledge gained during
prolonged stays at Chinese universities and
research institutions as well as at numerous
field trips and field-initiated cooperative
projects that have resulted in a number of
published papers to-date. This book is a
meticulous compilation of published works
of mostly Chinese researchers, critically
selected and reviewed by Pirajno in a style
prevalent in the contemporary western
writing. Even so it is not an easy reading:
crammed with references and unfamiliar
names it has had to deal with myriads of
conflicting ideas resulting from a science in
flux and from blending of some traditional
Chinese geoscientific beliefs with modern
concepts prevalent here. The Chinese
geodynamic history is more complex
compared with, for example, the western
margin of the Americas shaped by the
78

monodirectional subduction and accretion at
least since the end of the Precambrian. China
has been throughout its history at the
intersection of the N-S and E-W trends
subjected to alternating compression and
extension, especially within the old cratonic
blocks. This greatly influenced the
metallogeny where some popular genetic
stereotypes, like porphyry deposits related to
subduction, do not work well. China is the
home of unique metallogenic anomalies like
the enormous overlapping local accumula-
tions of Sn, W, (Bi, Be, Mo) and Sb, (Hg) in
south-eastern China; metalliferous “shales”;
and the enigmatic REE (and Fe, Nb) super-
giant Bayan Obo in Inner Mongolia.
Unfortunately, the scope of the book and
perhaps restriction of length prevented more
detailed description of several key and unique
super-giant deposits like Shizhouyuan W-Sn-
Be-Bi, Xikuangshan-Sb, Woxi Sb-W>Au,
although some others (Bayan Obo, Jiaodong)
have received adequate coverage.
The book is well produced and there are
a number of colour graphs. I was not
specifically on the lookout for errors that
would be hard to spot and, in many cases,
would be the result of conflicting
interpretations. On page 8, however, in
reference to Chinese language, Mao Zedong
is the pinyin transcription of the Chairman’s
name that, in Wade-Giles style, is Mao Tse-
Tung, not the other way round. This is an
excellent and much needed reference book
that deserves place on library shelves and/or
in electronic information systems.
Peter Laznicka
Metallogenica Consulting and
University of Adelaide
E: plaznicka@dodo.com.au

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March 2013