Search

Abstract: The Liucheng Gigantopithecus Cave is very famous for its rich mammalian fauna and Gigantopithecus fossils. The Gigantopithecus Cave Fauna has been regarded as the typical Early Pleistocene fauna in South China. The majority of the fossils unearthed has been studied and published during the past decades. The only group remaining unpublished is the rhinoceros, which is studied in this paper. The rhino materials available today are only mandibles and lower cheek teeth. The dimensions of the tooth rows and the isolated teeth fall well within the range of the recent Dicerorhinus sumatrensis. Therefore, the rhino fossils from the Liucheng Gigantopithecus Cave can be referred to this living species. The reduced lower incisors and the U-shaped lingual contour of the mandible also support this taxonomic determination. The rhino materials from the Liucheng Gigantopithecus Cave represent the earliest known record of this species and the smallest Pleistocene rhinocerotid in China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Six granite phases can be distinguished at the Jiepai deposit. • Four W and three Cu mineralization events are identified at Jiepai deposit. • The granites reveal a complex evolution process that involved two or more sources of magmas. The Jiepai W-Cu deposit, located in the northeastern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in South China, occurs along the contact zone between the Yuechengling granite batholith and the Cambrian dolomitic limestones and slates. The main body of the batholith is made of a Silurian monzogranite in the south and a Triassic monzogranite in the north. A number of Jurassic to Cretaceous fine-grained granite intrusions are present as stocks and dikes intersecting the batholith. The deposit includes five types of W-Cu ores, including (1) contact-zone scheelite skarn occurring at the lithological contact between monzogranite and dolomitic limestone, (2) strata-bound scheelite skarn hosted by dolomitic limestone, (3) disseminated or banded scheelite within gneissic granite, (4) titanite-bearing scheelite quartz veins cross-cutting the skarns and limestone, and (5) disseminated Cu sulfides within granodiorite, respectively. In this paper, we report new geochronological data obtained from zircon U-Pb, molybdenite Re-Os, and biotite and muscovite Ar-Ar analyses with the aim of constraining the timing of magmatic and mineralization events. Zircon SHRIMP U-Pb analyses of all the granitoids exposed in the deposit and its vicinity reveal six stages of magmatic emplacement dated at 448.4 ± 4.6 Ma, 434.6 ± 3.5 Ma, 429.4 ± 7.6 Ma, 219.2 ± 1.5 Ma, 156.0 ± 3.0 Ma, and 149.7 ± 2.2 Ma (weighted 206Pb/238U mean ages). Molybdenite Re-Os and muscovite and biotite Ar-Ar analyses reveal four W mineralization events that were associated with the magmatic emplacement at 448.4 ± 4.6 Ma, 429.4 ± 7.6 Ma, 219.2 ± 1.5 Ma, and 151.4 ± 1.9 Ma, and three Cu mineralization events at 434.3 ± 5.1 Ma, 152.2 ± 1.1 Ma, and 141.0 ± 2.5 Ma, respectively. The granites at the deposit and its vicinity document weak fractionation of light and heavy REEs, contain low concentrations of Ba, Nb, Sr, P, and Ti, but high concentration of Ta. Neodymium isotopic data of the W-mineralized Late Ordovician granites (ε Nd(t) = −4.87, T 2DM = 1.6 Ga) imply magma mixing of mafic mantle material with Paleoproterozoic and/or Mesoproterozoic continental crust. By contrast, the Silurian granites (ε Nd(t) = −10.15 to −13.49) were formed by anatexis of the Paleoproterozoic continental crust. High-precision Hf-O isotope data obtained in this study indicate partial melting of the lower crust as the main source of the younger granites, and further reveal a complex evolution process that involved two or more sources of magmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]