The Gangdese porphyry copper belt consists of one large and five middle-small deposits in addition to dozens of ore-bearing porphyry bodies. The belt trends 350 km long along the EW-striking Gangdese batholith, and locally occurs as a string of beads extending about 50 km within the SN-trending rifting zones (grabens) on the Tibetan plateau. Monzonitic granite- porphyry and quartz monzonitic porphyry, as dominant host rocks, are shoshonitic and potassic calc-alkaline. Available dating data indicate that the ages of the shallow-level emplacement for these porphyries vary from 10 Ma to 18 Ma, which are identical to that of associated potassic calc-alkaline volcanic rocks (10—15 Ma) and mafic dykes (13—18 Ma). The timing and duration of Cu mineralization events are constrained by Re-Os ages for molybdenites from three porphyry copper deposits in the Gangdese porphyry copper belt. Five molybdenite samples from the Nanmu deposit yielded an 187Re-187Os isochron with a highly pre-cise age of (14.76?.22) Ma; six molybdenites from the Chongjiang deposit gave an isochron age of (14.04?.16) Ma. Re-Os model ages for two molybdenite samples from Lakang抏 deposit vary from 13.5 Ma to 13.6 Ma, which are basically identical to isochron ages mentioned above. All the thirteen samples from these three deposits yielded a linear array in the isochron diagram with a higher correlation coefficient of 0.99719 and an isochron age of (14.39?.22) Ma (1s error), suggesting an coeval event of the Cu mineralization and a shared source of ore materials for the Gangdese porphyry copper belt. Compared with the longer-lived felsic magmatic-hydrothermal system, the Cu mineralization is a relatively short event with duration of about 0.5 Ma, and usu-ally occurs in the later-stage of the complicate magmatic system. The emplacement age of the Gangdese porphyries indicates that they intruded after the rapid rising of the Gangdese Mountains at 21—23 Ma, and formed in a post-collision crustal ex-tension environment. Constraint of the NS-trending
HOU Zengqian1, QU Xiaoming1, WANG Shuxian2, DU Andao2, GAO Yongfeng3 & HUANG Wei4 1. Institute of Mineral Resources, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China
4.1 Ga old detrital zircon was found by SHRIMP U-Pb dating for quartz schist from Buring County in western Tibet, Southwest China. This is the oldest zircon U-Pb age found in China so far. The detrital zircon is a zircon of magmatic origin because its Th/ U ratios are 0.76 to 0.86. Two dates older than 4.0 Ga were measured only in one grain. U-Pb ages of 35 measured spots in 24 zircons can be subdivided into 6 groups, corresponding to at least 6 episodes of magmatic activity in the target area. The present results provide an important geochronological constraint on the geological evolution of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
