Study Mineralogical And Gemological Research Of Shanxi Xunyang Bloodstone

Blood stone keeps a relatively high value in the market in recent years for the following reasons.Firstly, the mineral resource in the ore deposits could not matches with the market demand.Secondly, the consumers of soapstone increase sharply. Thirdly, the quality of soapstone theconsumer pursuit in the market elevated. Xunyang soapstone is treated as the replacement oftraditional soapstone, and becomes more and more popular.Based on field survey and sampling, we studied the mineral composition, geomological featuresand Metallogenic factors of Xunyang soapstone using modern analytic methods, includingmicroscopic observation, EPMA analysis, X-ray diffraction analysis, nfrared spectroscopyanalysis and CL observation. Primary minerals include quartz, cinnabar and cinnabar, whileaccessory minerals include dolomite, calcite and barite. Both chemical composition and spectrafeatures of primary minerals and accessory minerals are given.Metallogenesis in this region were discussed combined with previous published O, H, C isotopicdata. We believe that the ore forming fluids were derived from atmospheric precipitation, whichextracted the elements deposit on the surface. The ore forming fluids were infiltrated into deepthrough fractures. The extracted element bearing ore forming fluids travel to the Devonian stratathrough fractures and reacted with the sulfide of the strata and mineralized. The whole process is atypical hydrothermal-deposit process. Mineralization is dominated by fractures, combined withsilification, carbonation and pyritization. Silification and carbonation have a close relationshipwith mineralization.Xunyang Soapstone is divided into three categories: soapstone, Zhu gravel, sand treasure. Wecomplimented the classified method proposed by previous workers, therefore, the value ofXunyang Soapstone gem will be better recognized by comparing the amount of their " blood",color, quality, shape difference, and stone ingredients quality.Compared with the traditional soapstone in Changhua and Bailin in various aspects, Xunyangsoapstone bear the features of traditional soapstone and their blood quality has been affirmed. Atthe same time, the defect of Xunyang soapstone is also obvious, such as mineral assemblage iscomplex, the easily induced fracture. At last, we give some comments on the utilization ofXunyang soapstone resource.