Indium and gallium enrichments in zinc orebodies in the Taebaeksan region, Korea

Indium (In) and gallium (Ga) have been regarded as the critical elements due to a large recent demand on high-tech applications but their relatively low crustal abundance.The presence of variable In and Ga contained in sphalerite has recently been reported from numerous magmatichydrothermal zinc orebodies in the Taebaeksan metallogenic region in Korea.Here we report chemical compositions of lithologies including granitoid intrusions and sedimentary sequences in the region and compare with associated sphalerites to investigate geological distributions and enrichment processes of In and Ga.While In in the lithologies are not generally detected by LA-ICP-MS, high concentrations up to 630 ppm in sphalerite suggest a significant In enrichment by magmatic-hydrothermal fluids.Major zinc mines show high In concentrations of an average 100 ppm suggesting a potential of economic In orebodies in th…