A Review of the Impurity Element Chemistry and Textures of Natural Quartz and Its Application to the Prospect of High Purity Quartz Deposit

At present, China's high-grade high-purity quartz (above 4N8) completely depends on imports. High-purity quartz is a strategic mineral to ensure the safety of chip, optical fiber, photovoltaic and high-end devices in China. In this paper, related references on the distribution characteristics of impurity elements in quartz are reviewed and summarized. The medium and high-grade high-purity quartz is mainly isomorphism, mainly including B, Li, Al, Ge, Ti, Fe, Mn, K and P elements. The prospecting directions of high purity quartz in China are as follows: hydrothermal vein quartz, metamorphic recrystallized quartz, greisen and quartz vein of tungsten-tin deposit, granite pegmatite quartz and highly differentiated evolution granite quartz. The high-grade high-purity quartz above 4N may be from non-metallogenic granite pegmatite. The geological background, quartz composition and source, controlling factors and other metallogenic theories related to the formation of high-purity quartz deposits, i.e. modelling the mineralisation of high purity quartz, are the basis for the breakthrough in prospecting and exploration of high-purity quartz deposits in China. All these not only indicate the prospecting of high-purity quartz, but also trace the magmatic-hydrothermal evolution for tungsten, tin, niobium, tantalum, lithium and other metal deposits. The geological exploration for high-purity quartz is in its infancy in China. This paper is a preliminary summary of the studies on exploration of high-purity quartz in the past years.