The survey and prospecting of bauxite in China began in 1924, when Japanese people such as Junxiong Banamoto carried out geological surveys of bauxite shale in Liaoyang, Liaoning Province and Yantai, Shandong Province. Since then, the Japanese and other scholars, such as Wang Zhuquan, Xie Jiarong and Chen Hongcheng, have carried out special geological surveys of bauxite and bauxite shale in Zibo, Shandong, Tangshan and Kailuan, Hebei, Taiyuan, Xishan and Yangquan, Shanxi, and Benxi and Fuzhou Bay, Liaoning. The investigation of bauxite in southern China began in 1940. First, Bian Zhaoxiang investigated the bauxite near Banqiao Town, Kunming, Yunnan. Then, from 1942 to 1945, Peng Qirui, Xie Jiarong, Lesen Wangxun and others successively carried out geological survey and systematic sampling of bauxite and high-alumina clay ore in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan. In general, the work before the founding of the People's Republic of China was of a general nature of survey and investigation.
The real geological exploration of bauxite began after the founding of the People's Republic of China. From 1953 to 1955, the geological teams of the Ministry of Metallurgy and the Ministry of Geology successively carried out geological exploration for the bauxite in Zibo, Shandong Province, the bauxite in Xiaoguan, Gongxian County, Henan Province (such as Zhulingou, Chadian, Shuitou, Zhongling and other mining areas), the bauxite in Guizhou and Guizhou (such as Linxi, Xiaoshanba, Yanlong and other mining areas), and the Baijiazhuang mining area in Yangquan, Shanxi, and so on. However, due to the lack of bauxite exploration experience and the blind application of the former Soviet Union's bauxite specifications without considering the actual situation of China's bauxite, most of the geological exploration reports were downgraded during the review from 1960 to 1962, and the reserves were also reduced a lot. After 1958, China has accumulated some experience in the exploration of bauxite. On the basis of conducting a large-scale copper and aluminum survey, many mining areas have been discovered and explored. The more important ones are: Henan Zhangyaoyuan, Guangxi Pingguo, Shanxi Xiaoyi Keru, Fujian Zhangpu, Hainan Penglai and other bauxite mining areas.
The mining of bauxite in China began in 1911. At that time, the Japanese first mined the bauxite in Fuzhouwan, Liaoning Province, China. Then, from 1925 to 1941, they mined the bauxite in layers A and G of Liaoyang, Liaoning Province and Yantai, Shandong Province. The above mining was mostly used as refractory materials. From 1941 to 1943, the Japanese mined the Tianzhuang and Hongtulpo ore sections of the Zibo Bauxite Hutian and Fengshui mining areas in Shandong Province, and the ore was used as the raw material for aluminum smelting. Later, Taiwan Aluminum Corporation also conducted small-scale mining for aluminum smelting.
The large-scale development and utilization of bauxite in China began after the founding of the People's Republic of China. In 1954, the Fengshui mine in Shandong Province, which had been mined on a small scale, was first restored. After 1958, three major aluminum plants, 501, 502 and 503, were successively built in Shandong, Henan and Guizhou provinces. In order to meet the demand of these three aluminum plants for bauxite, aluminum raw material bases such as Zhangdian Aluminum Mine, Xiaoguan Aluminum Mine, Luoyang Aluminum Mine, Xiuwen Aluminum Mine, Qingzhen Aluminum Mine and Yangquan Aluminum Mine were built in Shandong, Henan, Shanxi and Guizhou provinces.
In the 1980s, especially after the establishment of the National Nonferrous Metals Industry Corporation in 1983, China's bauxite geological exploration and aluminum industry have developed rapidly, and a number of large aluminum plants represented by Shanxi Aluminum Plant and Guizhou Aluminum Plant have been built and expanded, which has increased the output of raw aluminum from less than 2000 tons in 1954 to 1.87 million tons in the 1990s. A complete set of aluminum industrial system has been established from geology, mining to smelting and processing, and aluminum metal and its processed products can basically meet the needs of China's economic construction.
Phased changes:
According to the opinions of Liao Shifan and others, China's bauxite deposits can be divided into ancient weathering crust-type bauxite deposits and lateritic bauxite deposits.
The formation of ancient weathering crust bauxite deposits in China has gone through three stages. The first stage is the terrestrial stage, which is the residual and deluvial aluminium-rich weathering crust material containing bauxite minerals, clay minerals, iron oxide minerals, etc. formed by weathering under atmospheric conditions, such as calc-laterite layer, laterite layer or laterite bauxite. This stage is the in-situ residual, accumulation or off-site accumulation stage under atmospheric conditions; The second stage is that the aluminium-rich calcium-laterite layer, laterite layer or laterite bauxite is submerged by sea water (or lake water), some are submerged by sea water (or lake water) immediately, some are submerged by sea water (or lake water) after a certain period of diagenesis, and gradually buried deep underground, and the original bauxite layer is formed after a period of diagenetic epigenesis evolution and transformation; The third stage is the supergene enrichment stage, which is that the original bauxite ore layer is lifted to the shallow part of the surface along with the crust, and the silica is leached and the aluminum is enriched due to the transformation of the surface water or groundwater, forming a high-grade bauxite deposit with industrial value. The ancient weathering crust bauxite in China was mainly formed in the Carboniferous. The formation of this type of bauxite deposit is related to the ancient weathering crust of the erosion discontinuity. Generally speaking, the erosion discontinuity period is long, especially the underlying bedrock is carbonate rock or aluminous and easily weathered basic extrusive rock (such as basalt), and the deposit formed is often rich in ore grade, thick in ore bed and large in ore body size.
Weathering:
As for lateritic bauxite deposits, it is generally believed that they are formed by weathering of aluminiferous rocks under modern climatic conditions. There is only one subclass of lateritic bauxite deposits, known as Zhangpu lateritic bauxite deposits, which are bauxite deposits formed by the recent (Quaternary) weathering of Tertiary to Quaternary basalts. Their reserves are very small, accounting for only 1.17% of China's total bauxite reserves. Modern lateritic bauxite in China is mainly formed in low-latitude areas, such as Fujian, Hainan and some areas in Guangdong. These areas have hot weather, abundant rainfall and easily weathered basalt, so they can form modern lateritic bauxite. As for China's the Nansha Islands and the Zhongsha Islands, although they are also in low latitudes and have the climate to form bauxite, the time for these islands to rise to land is not long, only 10 to 30 thousand years, and the weathering time is short, so it is difficult to form bauxite deposits.
The residual bauxite is mostly formed on aluminosilicate and limestone, and this laterization generally occurs in tropical and subtropical regions. The tropical and subtropical climate is characterized by alternate rainy and dry seasons, with the same length of time and smell. During the rainy season, the rainfall is large (1500mm~2500mm), and the dry season basically does not rain. The temperature is hot all year round and the temperature difference between day and night is small, which is conducive to plant growth and microbial reproduction. Under such climatic conditions, the organic matter (humus, organic acid, etc.) on the surface is extremely rich, thus accelerating the process of chemical weathering.
An important natural condition for the formation of bauxite is the hot and rainy humid climate. In turn, bauxite can be considered as a sign of the ancient humid climate, but it may be confused with sediments that do not know the importance of the ancient climate (such as iron hard soil layer related to the groundwater level). Many scholars use the weathering profile in which bauxite occupies an appropriate position in the sequence to verify.