Cover Story：Genetic diagram of potash- bearing brine in the pluvial-alluvial sandy gravel bed of Qaidam Basin, Qinghai Province. Potash-bearing brine was discovered in early Quaternary sandy gravel bed that occurs on the foreland of Altun Mountains in the west of the basin. Drilling has controlled resource quantity of 3.5 hundred million tons. The brine is of the sodium chloride type. Field evaporation test shows that crystallization had lasted a very long time until the separation of carnallite. The fairly simple mineral assemblage of this kind of salt is likely to bring convenience to the future extraction technology, and hence the potash-bearing area is expected to be a potash salt reserve base in the Qaidam Basin. The discovery of large quantities of potash-bearing brine in the sandy gravel is very rare both in China and abroad. The research achievement led by Academician ZHENG Mian-ping, Institute of Mineral Resources, CAGS, ranks the fourth among “Top Ten Geological Sci-tech Progresses of CGS & CAGS in 2014”. For details, see page 129-139 of this issue. (Photo by ZHENG Mian-ping and HOU Xian-hua)
