By Sergey M. Rodionov1, Alexander A. Obolenskiy2

By Sergey M. Rodionov¹, Alexander A. Obolenskiy²,

Elimir G. Distanov², Gombosuren Badarch³, Gunchin Dejidmaa⁴,

Duk Hwan Hwang⁵, Alexander I.Khanchuk⁶, Masatsugu Ogasawara⁷,

Warren J. Nokleberg⁸, Leonid M. Parfenov⁹, Andrei V. Prokopiev⁹,

Zhan V. Seminskiy¹⁰, Alexander P. Smelov⁹, Hongquan Yan¹¹,

Yuriy V. V. Davydov⁹, Valeriy Yu. Fridovskiy¹² , Gennandiy N. Gamyanin⁹,

Ochir Gerel¹³, Alexei V. Kostin⁹, Sergey A. Letunov¹⁴, Xujun Li¹¹,

Valeriy M. Nikitin¹², Vladimir V. Ratkin⁶, Vladimir I. Shpikerman¹⁵,

Sadahisa Sudo⁷, Vitaly I. Sotnikov², Alexander V. Spiridonov¹⁴,

Vitaly A. Stepanov¹⁶, Fengyue Sun¹¹, Jiapeng Sun¹¹, Weizhi Sun¹¹,

Valeriy M. Supletsov⁹, Vladimir F. Timofeev⁹, Oleg A. Tyan⁹,

Valeriy G. Vetluzhskikh⁹, Koji Wakita⁷, Yakov V. Yakovlev⁹, and

Lydia M. Zorina¹⁴

Edited by Sergey M. Rodionov¹, Alexander A. Obolenskiy²,

Zhan V. Seminskiy¹⁰, Tatiana V. Bounaeva¹⁴, and Warren J. Nokleberg⁸

Introduction and Companion Studies

The metallogenic belts of Northeast Asia are herein synthesized, compiled, described, and interpreted with the use of modern concepts of plate tectonics, terranes and overlap assemblages, and mineral deposit models. The data supporting the compilation are: (1) comprehensive descriptions of mineral deposits; (2) compilation and synthesis of a regional geodynamics map the region at 5 million scale with detailed explanations and cited references; and (3) compilation and synthesis of metallogenic belt maps at 10 million scale with detailed explanations and cited references. These studies are part of a major international collaborative study of the Mineral Resources, Metallogenesis, and Tectonics of Northeast Asia that was conducted from 1997 through 2002 by geologists from earth science agencies and universities in Russia, Mongolia, Northeastern China, South Korea, Japan, and the USA.

Several companion studies, that are part of the study of NE Asia, are closely related to this paper. These companion studies are: a detailed geodynamics map of Northeast Asia (Parfenov and others, 2003); a compilation of major mineral deposit models (Rodionov and Nokleberg, 2000; Rodionov and others, 2000; Obolenskiy and others, 2003b); a series of mineral deposit location and metallogenic belt maps (Obolenskiy and others, 2003A); and a database on significant metalliferous and selected nonmetalliferous lode deposits, and selected placer districts (Ariunbileg and others, 2003).

Metallogenic belts are characterized by a narrow age of formation, and include districts, deposits, and occurrences. The metallogenic belts are synthesized for the main structural units of the North Asian Craton and Sino-Korean Craton, framing orogenic belts that consist of collage of accreted tectonostratigraphic terranes, younger overlap volcanic and sedimentary rock sequences, and younger stitching plutonic sequences. The major units in the region are the North Asian Craton, exterior passive continental margin units (Baikal-Patom, Enisey Ridge, Southern Taymir, and Verkhoyansk passive continental margin units), the early Paleozoic Central Asian orogenic belt, and various Mesozoic and Cenozoic continental margin arcs. Metallogenic belts are interpreted according to specific geodynamic environments including cratonal, active and passive continental margin, continental-margin arc, island arc, oceanic or continental rift, collisional, transform-continental margin, and impact.

Previous metallogenic units published by various authors for studies of metallogenic zonation include this by Bilibin (1955) Itsikson and others (1965), Shatalov (1965), Itsikson (1973, 1979), Guild (1978), Scheglov (1980), Mitchell and Garson (1981). Radkevich (1982), Tomson (1988), Zonenshain and others (1992) Koroteev (1996), Parfenov and others (1999). Sukhov and others (2000), and Plyuschev (2001). These metallogenic units include: (1) planetary deposit-hosting province or planetary metallogenic belt (1000 by 10³ km²); (2) deposit-hosting belt or metallogenic belt (150 to 1000 by 10³ km²); (3) deposit-hosting system or metallogenic system (40 to 150 by 10³ km²); (4) deposit-hosting zone or metallogenic zone (20 to 40 by 10³ km²); (5) deposit-hosting subzone or metallogenic subzone (2 to 20 by 10³ km²); and (6) ore district (0.4 to 2.0 by 10³ km²).

However, often determination of differences between some of these metallogenic units is difficult. Examples are metallogenic system versus metallogenic zone, or ore district versus deposit-hosting subzone. For this study, only a two simple terms are employed: metallogenic belt and contained district. Generally, the size of metallogenic belts is partly a function of the scale of the analysis. This study has synthesized and compiled metallogenic belts at 5 M scale.

In this study, a metallogenic belt is essentially the synonymous with the term mineral resource tract as originally defined by Pratt (1981) and used for assessment of mineral resource potential in the USA, as in exemplified in Luddington and Cox (1996). The metallogenic belt maps and underlying regional geologic (terrane and overlap assemblage maps) constitute a basic part of the three-part methodology of quantitative mineral resource assessment as described by Cox (1993) and Singer (1993, 1994).