Regional geological and mineral resources characteristics of Iceland

Located in central North Atlantic Ocean, Iceland is an island lying between the North Atlantic and Greenland Sea.It is the second largest island in Europe.It is an alkaline basalt area, which belongs to the periodic submarine magmatism and submarine volcano eruption resulting from mantle plume upwelling.The island is mainly composed of basalt, and can be divided into four major stratigraphic units, i.e., the Tertiary unit, the Plio-Pleistocene unit, the Upper Pleistocene unit and the Postglacial unit.The Icelandic volcano fracture system can betectonically divided into three flank zones and four volcanic rift zones.The geothermal resources in Iceland have such features as wide distribution, various types, high temperature, and freshwater nature of the geothermal fluid.In recent years, geological departments have found a series of gold deposits(mineralization spots)in Iceland.Mainly distributed in the coastal areas of Iceland, they can be divided into three metallogenic belts.Being epithermal deposits, the gold deposits have a close relationship with the geothermal system.It should be mentioned that they are very similar to the Axi gold deposit in northern Xinjiang.Based on previous data, this paper introduces the geological features and evolution history of Iceland briefly, and elaborates the distribution of geothermal and gold resources so as to provide a reference for Chinese scientists and technicians.