Cover Story
A world-class high-grade gold orebody is dis-covered at depth in the Nating porphyry copper polymetallic deposit, Duolong district, Xizang. The photo shows the high-grade gold orebody of over 1 g/t, with nearly 400 m thickness. Explo-ration and research have revealed that its gold resources have become the 1st in China and among top 20 in the world. The high-grade copper and gold orebodies occur in the transition zone be-tween phyllic alteration and potassic- silicic al-teration, and contain abundant indicator minerals such as magnetite and anhydrite. The deposit is classified as a porphyry-high sulfi-dation epithermal overprinting deposit, similar to the Tiegelongnan deposit in the Duolong dis-trict, but has a higher gold grade. The Dibaonamugang copper (gold) deposit is the western extension of the Nating orebody, fu-ture exploration will increase the associated gold resources of the Nating–Dibaonamugang copper (gold) deposit to around 40 times over large-scale gold deposit, with copper resources over 10 million tons. Therefore, the global ranking of the copper-gold resources of the Nating–Dibaonamugang deposit will be further elevated. Research on the mechanisms for gold enrichment and the modification- preservation of the deposit will be the focus of further studies. For further details, see pp. 951-959 of this issue. (Image by YANG Chao)
