World-class mineral deposits of northeastern Transbaikalia, Siberia, Russia / Месторождения полезных ископаемых мирового класса в северо-восточном Забайкалье, Сибирь, Россия

This monograph is a new detailed study of large and unique ferrous, precious, base metal and rare metal deposits in Russia. It addresses complex interrelated problems of geological setting, magmatism, and ore genesis of Northeastern Transbaikalia, one of the Earth’s largest Paleoproterozoic metallogenic provinces. This area comprises three super-large and a number of ordinary deposits and occurrences. First of all, this province hosts 50 Mt of copper in sedimentary and magmatic rocks, including the giant Udokan deposit. Russia’s largest reserves of vanadium are concentrated within the Chiney gabbro-anorthosite pluton. And finally, the Katugin deposit, with unique reserves of niobium and zirconium, is also located here.

This work is based on a long study conducted by the authors on geochemistry and mineralogy of rocks and ores from many deposits. The monograph also includes results of predecessors obtained during mapping and prospecting of the Kodar-Udokan area. It shows that the Udokan-Chiney mineral district is a unique metallogenic taxon, combining large and giant deposits of sedimentary, hydrothermal, and magmatic origin in a complex and multistage ore-magmatic system associated with the Proterozoic mantle plume. The authors discovered new types of ore in this area, such as hydrothermal sulfide mineralization with platinum group metals and uranium, as well as rare elements in the hydrothermally altered rocks.

However, despite the economic importance and interesting geology of this area, there are no many publications on this unique region. That is why this work may be of great interest to regional and economic geologists, as well as to the students studying geology in the universities across the world.