This book would not have been written were it not for the everlasting patience of my dear wife Ramona, who tolerated my long-lasting mental absence when working behind the microscope or the connected computer and for tirelessly assisting me with data compilation. Our son Andre also took part in the data gathering, for which I am quite thankful. Many polished sections had not been looked after for decades and D. Lange (FU Berlin) provided much needed help in upgrading severely oxidised samples.

Since it is very difficult to gather the vast amount of different ore minerals included in this atlas, I am very much indepted to a number of colleagues, who provided many uncommon samples. In particular, the use of Ramdohr's famous research collection, now held at the Mineralogy Department of Heidelberg University, as well as the samples from the BGR and the private collection of T. Witzke proved to be valuable sources for many specimens. All published photo contributions are thankfully referenced below and cited in the text with the respective abbreviation in square brackets

The ancients observed and collected rocks that fell from the sky. There are reports of the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Japanese, and the natives of North America and other countries collecting them, using them for trade, and putting them in places of importance such as tombs. Modern-age research on such objects opened with the pioneering work of Howard and Bournon (Fig. 1.1).

Existing views on the tectonic evolution of the Central Asian orogenic belt (CAOB) are highly controversial and the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian stages of this evolution remain the most enigmatic. However, the views on the Paleozoic evolution of the CAOB crucially depend on these early stages, as different choices of the starting point lead to very dissimilar Paleozoic reconstructions. In this context numerous microcontinents with the Precambrian basement that are included in the mosaic structure of Kazakhstan, Tien Shan, Altai and Mongolia are of particular interest. We undertook a paleomagnetic, geochemical and geochronological study of the Neoproterozoic volcanics from one of these units — the Baydaric microcontinent in Central Mongolia. According to U–Pb (laser ablation) dating the age of the studied Dzabkhan Volcanics is about 770–805 Ma. Thermal demagnetization revealed that most of the studied samples retained a pre-tilting component, whose primary origin is supported by a conglomerate test. These new data, together with available geological information allow us to conclude that about 770–800 Ma ago the Baydaric domain was located at a latitude of 47 (+16/-12)° N and belonged to one of the following plates: India, South China, Tarim or Australia.

Many scientists traditionally believe that the ore (and not only ore) matter of most endogenous economic minerals comes directly from the mantle or through the mantle matter differentiation and invasion of differentiated magmas in the crust together with water fluids rising from Earth’s depth. However, this assumption is right only in part as the entire matter of the continental crust, including ore elements, had been indeed released in the past from the mantle along with the other rock-forming oxides. In substance, however, this assumption is the “path of least resistance” as it allows us to hide our lack of knowledge of the real mechanisms of local crust enrichment with trace elements in a “black box” of the mantle and to substitute one complex problem with another one, no less complex. Indeed, the entire complexity of the classical approach to explaining the formation causes of local ore and other trace element accumulations in Earth’s crust is in that the concentration of most of them in the mantle is disappearingly low, whereas in commercial deposits it is relatively high and reaches sometimes top-cut grade value. For instance, gold and uranium concentration in the present-day mantle is on the order of 10-9; mercury and thorium 10-8; silver, tantalum, tungsten, platinum and lead 10-7; lithium, niobium, molybdenum and tin 10-6, etc., whereas in commercial deposits the concentration of these rare elements may rise to fractions and even whole percentages. <...>