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

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).