Which basin in Qinghai Province, China is rich in mineral resources and is called the cornucopia?

In Qinghai Province, China, Qaidam Basin is rich in mineral resources, which is called the cornucopia. Details are as follows:

I. Introduction:

Qaidam Basin is one of the three inland basins in China, a closed giant intermountain fault basin and one of the four great basin in China. Located in the northwest of Qinghai Province and the northeast of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, it is mainly located in Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, reaching Altun Mountain in the northwest, Kunlun Mountain in the southwest and Qilian Mountain in the northeast, covering an area of about 240,000 square kilometers. It is rich in iron ore, copper ore, tin ore, salt ore and other minerals, so it is called.

2. Qaidam Basin is a plateau basin, located in the northwest of Qinghai Province, mainly in Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. It is a closed basin surrounded by Kunlun Mountain, Altun Mountain and Qilian Mountain. The basin is slightly triangular, about 800 kilometers long from east to west and 300 kilometers wide from north to south, covering an area of about 240,000 square kilometers. It is one of the three inland basins in China.

Second, the geological structure:

1. The basement of the basin is Precambrian crystalline metamorphic rock series. The terrain is slightly inclined from northwest to southeast, and the altitude gradually drops from 3000 meters to about 2600 meters. The landform is concentric and annular, and the fan-shaped alluvial gravel, alluvial silt plain, lacustrine-alluvial silty clay plain and lacustrine silt saline soil plain change regularly, and salt lakes and swamps are widely distributed in low-lying areas.

2. The ratio of the inner edge of the Gobi belt in the northwest of the basin is high, and the hills below 100 meters are clustered. The southeastern part of the basin has serious subsidence, broad floodplain and many lakes and plains. Major lakes such as North and South Horuson Lake and Dabusun Lake are distributed here, and there are large swamps along the downstream coast and around the lakes, such as Qaidam River, Sulingole River and Golmud River.

3. There are a series of low mountain fault block uplifts in the northeast of the basin, and a secondary small intermountain basin is formed between the basin and Qilian Mountain. From west to east, there are Huahaizi, Delingha and Wulan basins, and the rivers in these basins pour into lakes in their low-lying centers.