A discussion on how to discriminate A-type granite

30 years have passed since the term of “A-type granite” was firstly proposed, since then the recognition of A-type granite has changed a lot in terms of connotation and denotation compared to its original definition. This paper mainly focuses on the validities and limitations of various kinds of methods to identify A-type granite (especially geochemical discriminating diagrams), and we find that these are not always available. Thus, it should be prudential when they are applied to help discriminate the types of granite. Actually, the essence of A-type granite is very likely to be its relatively high temperature (cf. I- and S-type granite), regardless of the geodynamic settings.