New data on mineral complexes of the Turgoyak limestone deposit (South Ural)

The main purpose of the research was to ascertain additional development potential of the oldest mining plant in the Southern Urals - the Turgoyak limestone deposit (Miass District, Chelyabinsk region, South Ural). An additional site dike survey work and mineral veins enclosed in carbonate rock strata and overlapping Low Devonian jasperoid rock was carried out. The main purpose of that exploration was a detailed study of the chemical and mineral composition of both dikes and host rock and their secondary alterations. In addition to photographic documentation and mapping, an interrelation between dikes and veins and theirs contacts was determined. Also the connection with them of newly formed sulfide and other secondary minerals was detected (recorded). Subsequently rock and mineral samples were analyzed by microscopic methods, X-ray diffraction and X-ray phase analysis, X-ray fluorescence analysis by RLP-3-01 device, a DRON-7 diffractometer, and a DELTA Premium portable spectrometer. Those investigations resulted in establishment of silicate and calcareous skarns, spatially associated with diabase dikes at the Turgoyak flux limestone deposit. In addition to the skarns, vein polymineral bodies were recorded there. The most interesting of those are carbonate-quartz-axinitic and axinitic ones. The veins of this composition contain superimposed post-skarn sulfide mineralization, with signs of increased gold content. Given the development at the deposit of the dyke complex and the skarns forming on it, it is possible to forecast the existence of a granitoid intrusion in deep horizons that can generate industrial ore mineralization. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd