Geochemical enrichment and mineralization of indium

Indium occurs in a very dispersed manner in nature with enrichment of economic interest rarely known. The highly dispersed nature of indium, among several other elements, has for a long time retarded our understanding of the regularities that control their mineralization, which in turn has hindered exploitation and application of these elements. Recent studies of ours show that no significant enrichment of indium can be recognized in various types of Pb-Zn sulphide deposits as well as in deposits of copper, iron and manganese. Indium concentrations in ores of these deposits are generally below 10 × 10^-6. In contrast, however, indium is found to be enriched to a significant extent in cassiterite-sulphide deposits and some tin-rich Pb-Zn polymetallic deposits. The average content of indium in these deposits can be over 100 × 10^-6, and more than 90% of it is concentrated in sphalerite. Generally, these deposits may be considered as large paragenic deposits for indium and, therefore, there must be some regularities that govern the geochemical enrichment of the so-called “dispersed element” indium. This project was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 49633110).