Abstract:

The Mayang copper deposit located in the Central of Yuanma basin and near to Mount Xuefeng in the southern is a rarely sandstone type native copper deposit. The production of this deposit has a long history，and can be dated to Period of Spring and Autumn ，so far it has provided more than 2 million tons copper which about 90% from native copper. The ore bodies are multistory and mainly occur in the gray white or gray green sandstones of Jinjiang Formation of Cretaceous, and a single ore-body is stratified or lentoid. The native copper is important as cement in sandstones. In this paper, the content of major elements, trace elements and rare earth elements of the redbed rock, ores, native copper and chalcocite were calculated using the correlation analysis to discuss the relationship between the element character and copper mineralization. Kinds of elements, such as Fe, Ag, As, Ba, Sr, are positive correlated with Cu, which show these elements are closely related to the native copper formation. The native copper mineralization is due to the underground thermal water, and this type fluid may be low temperature and weak reduction environment.

Key words: native copper, sandstone, major and trace elements geochemistry, correlation analyses, Mayang, Hunan