REE Characteristics of the Kalatongke Cu‐Ni Deposit, Xinjiang, China

Abstract  On the basis of the study on the REE geochemistry of the ore minerals and host rocks of the Kalatongke Cu‐Ni deposit, Xinjiang, it is indicated that the major ore minerals, sulfides, were sourced from the host mafic‐ultramafic magma. Characterized by low REE content of sulfide, such a Cu‐Ni sulfide deposit occurring in the orogen is obviously different from that on the margin of the craton. Because the mafic‐ultramafic rocks from the Cu‐Ni sulfide deposit occurring in the orogen is water‐rich and the REEs of some sulfides show a particular “multiple‐bending” pattern, which suggests coexistence of multiple liquid phases (fluid and melt), the sulfide melt possibly contains a great deal of hydrothermal fluids and increasingly developed gases and liquid‐rich ore‐forming fluids after the main metallogenic epoch (magmatic segregation stage).