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Neoarchean Banded Iron Formations in the North China Craton: Geology, Geochemistry, and Its Implications

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Main Tectonic Events and Metallogeny of the North China Craton

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Abstract

The distribution of Banded iron formations (BIFs) in the North China Craton (NCC) has some obvious characteristics. Large-scale BIFs and BIF-type iron deposits occur mainly in greenstone belts area such as Anshan-Benxi, eastern Hebei, Wutai, Guyang, western Shandong and Huoqiu; formation ages of BIFs in NCC show a wide range spanning from Mesoarchean to early Paleoproterozoic, with a peak in the late Neoarchean (2.6–2.5 Ga); BIFs can be divided into two types, Algoma-type and Superior Lake-type, most BIFs occurring in Neoarchean greenstone belts in NCC belong to the former, whereas only the Paleoproterozoic Yuanjiacun BIF in the Lüliang area has typical characteristics similar to Superior-type BIFs. The Neoarchean BIFs are mainly distributed in paleo-intracratonic basins and/or their margins. The BIFs can be developed in either marine volcanic-sedimentary environment or submarine exhalation sedimentary environment, either shallow marine clastic sedimentary environment or marine clastic-carbonate transition environment. All the BIFs in NCC experienced relatively high-grade metamorphism and strong deformation, forming most sedimentary metamorphic iron deposits with magnetite as a major economic mineral. Large amounts of geochemistry results of the Neoarchean BIFs in NCC show that the BIFs are composed predominantly of SiO2 + Fe2O T3 , and the contents of Al2O3, TiO2, K2O, Na2O, MnO, and P2O5 are very low, suggesting that BIFs belong to typical chemical sedimentary rocks. The Post-Archean Australian Shale-normalized REY patterns of the BIFs display an enrichment in heavy rare earth elements with positive La, Eu, and Y anomalies, indicating that the primary chemical precipitate is a result of solutions that represent mixtures of seawater and high-temperature hydrothermal fluids. The ε Nd(2.55 Ga) values (3.0–4.5) in Anshan-Benxi BIFs are close to those of the coeval depleted mantle, implying that the iron was most likely derived from the hydrothermal leaching of oceanic mafic crusts; the ε Nd(2.55 Ga) values (2.89 to −2.58) in the Wutai and E. Hebei BIFs suggest that the iron sources are mixing oceanic crusts and continental crusts. At the same time, the BIFs lack negative Ce anomalies with consistently positive δ56Fe values (0.12–1.87 ‰), which suggest that they formed in a low-oxygen or anoxia environment. A possible tectonic setting where the NCC BIFs and associated supra crustal rocks form is a back-arc basin or island arc related to a subducted ocean slab.

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Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by the Major State Basic Research Programme of the People’s Republic of China (No. 2012CB416601), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41572076), and the Knowledge Innovation Programme of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KZCX2-YW-Q04-07). We appreciate much help from prof. Mingguo Zhai, Dr. Yanpei Dai, Mengtian Zheng, and Zhiquan Li.

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  1. Key Laboratory of Mineral Resources, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Lianchang Zhang, Changle Wang, Mingtian Zhu, Hua Huang & Zidong Peng

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  1. Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Mingguo Zhai

  2. Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Institute of Geomechanics, Beijing, China

    Yue Zhao

  3. Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Guangzhou, China

    Taiping Zhao

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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore

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Zhang, L., Wang, C., Zhu, M., Huang, H., Peng, Z. (2016). Neoarchean Banded Iron Formations in the North China Craton: Geology, Geochemistry, and Its Implications. In: Zhai, M., Zhao, Y., Zhao, T. (eds) Main Tectonic Events and Metallogeny of the North China Craton. Springer Geology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1064-4_5

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