Mineral resources of Mongolia / Месторождения полезных ископаемых Монголии

Mongolia occupies the central part of the giant Central Asian Orogenic Belt—an accretionary orogen with long-time evolution since the early Palaeozoic to Mesozoic. The orogenic belt formed by accretion of Cambrian, Ordovician and DevonianCarboniferous arcs, back-arcs and accretionary wedges contains world-class copper porphyry, and orogenic gold deposits originated in subduction zones and a number of important deposits related to the post-orogenic and intraplate settings.
The mineral deposit studies in Mongolia began in the middle of the last century by Russian and Mongolian geologists during systematic geological mapping and prospecting work on a scale of 1:1,000,000 and 1:200,000, as well as the research work of the joint Mongolian-Russian expedition of the Mongolian and Russian Academies of Sciences in the second half of the last century. The results of these detailed and comprehensive studies were summarized in a book “Geology of the Mongolian People’s Republic, Volume III: Mineral Deposits”, published in 1977. In parallel with this, several monographs by Russian and Mongolian scientists on deposits of copper, tungsten, gold, phosphates, coal, uranium, fluorite and others were published, and a database of mineral deposits and occurrences in Mongolia was completed, resulting in the publication of a “Distribution Map of Mineral Deposits and Occurrences in Mongolia at the scale of 1:1,000,000” developed by Mongolian Geological Information Center in 2002 in Mongolian and English languages. Data of Geological Information Center were summarized in the book “Guide to the Geology and Mineral Resources of Mongolia”, published in English by Geological Exploration, Consulting and Service (GCS) Co. Ltd. A series of eight books, including “Metallic Mineral Deposits”, “Non-metallic Mineral Deposits” and “Fuel Minerals”, was published in 2010, and the second edition in 2012 in Mongolian language supported by the Erdenet Mine Corporation. Important data are available in the USGS professional paper 1765 (Nokleberg ed., 2010), which provides a comprehensive synthesis of the regional geology, tectonics and metallogenesis of Northeast Asia, including Mongolia <...>