Geological and Environmental Engineering | Article | Published 2020
Tian Shan is the worlds second largest gold ore cluster and hosts an array of world-class and large/ superlarge gold deposits. It constitutes a giant cross-border gold metallogenic belt that extends westward from Central Xingjiang, China to Uzbekistan, via southeastern Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. What metallogenic settings have been responsible for the large-scale gold mineralization of the Tian Shan giant gold belt? What are the key factors controlling gold mineralization? What are the criteria for gold prospecting in Tian Shan giant gold belt? All of these are crucial geological and prospecting problems that have become the focus of the academics and mining industry. Based on an extensive and thorough literature review, along with comprehensive field investigations on the geology and gold deposits of Tian Shan orogen, this paper suggests that the large-scale gold mineralization of Tian Shan had formed during a terrane assembling deformation subsequent to the final closure of the paleo-Asian Ocean in the Late Carboniferous Early Permian. On the other hand, minor gold mineralization had formed during intracontinental strike-slip deformation in the Middle Late Permian. The large brittle/ductile-brittle deformation zones, situated near the tectonic sutures of the northern and southern margins of the Middle Tian Shan, are the key factors controlling the large-scale gold mineralization of Tian Shan. Multistage overprinting mineralization is a significant feature of the Tian Shan deformed zone-hosted gold deposits. The crustal initial enrichment, structural deformation activation, and magmatic-hydrothermal overprinting are the main factors controlling the Tian Shan deformed zone-hosted gold deposits. Fine-grained carbonaceous clastic rocks, ductile-brittle