Wang Erli, 1965 graduated from the Department of Geology of Peking University, and is a female geologist trained in New China. As a third-generation potassium seeker, she has been tracking potassium for more than 30 years. Starting from 1995, she led the Lop Nur potash project team, undertook and organized the implementation of many national and departmental key scientific and technological projects such as the investigation, development and utilization of potash resources in Lop Nur. I have been engaged in the work of potassium for 30 years. I love this work very much and deeply feel that the shortage of potassium in China is too serious. Since 1950s, the state has invested a lot of manpower and funds in potash exploration. Except for the great breakthrough in Qaidam Basin, there are not many achievements in other areas, which leads to China's view that there is no potassium. Whether China can find another large-scale potash deposit has always been a concern of geologists and decision-making departments, including us. The history of oil discovery in China has given us great enlightenment. Before 1950s, China was labeled as an oil-poor country. However, under the guidance of geologists' efforts and innovative theories, we first made a breakthrough in oil exploration in Daqing, and then discovered many oil fields. Inspired by this, we should reflect and summarize, explore and innovate in theory and establish confidence in finding potassium.
During the five-year plan period before the Ninth Five-Year Plan, my colleagues and I were engaged in potassium salt research in Qaidam Basin. Over the years, through the comparative study of Qaidam basin and Tarim basin, it is considered that there are abundant potassium resources in Qaidam basin with 6.5438 0.2 thousand square kilometers, so there should be potassium enrichment in Tarim basin with 560 thousand square kilometers. Because, before the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in Quaternary, the two basins were connected and should have similar material sources, coupled with the analysis of early data and remote sensing data; This has strengthened our belief. So we persuaded the leaders, let's make a field trip and make a hole, and give a clear answer to whether there is a potash deposit in Lop Nur. In this way, 1995, as soon as the Eighth Five-Year Plan was completed, our project team embarked on a trip to Lop Nur. Talking about the past with potassium is like telling an old close friend that potassium salt has become an important element in her life.
Wang Erli applied the practical experience and theory of searching for potassium in Qaidam Basin, and made a comparative study. It was concluded that Tarim Basin, like Qaidam Basin, had a high mountain and deep basin salt-forming environment proposed by Mr. Yuan Jianqi. The sedimentary center of the basin moved under the control of neotectonic movement. The formation of potassium salt needs the environment of high mountains and deep basins, and the migration of the basin needs to be considered. Based on this understanding, the project team she led put forward a new concept of mine moving with basin, and developed the theory of mountain-deep basin into the theory of mountain-deep basin migration.
Under the guidance of new theoretical understanding, the project team turned its attention to Lop Nur area in the east of Tarim Basin, and then locked the Luobei Depression. During the period of 1996, under the call of Professor Wang Boli, the State Planning Commission listed the investigation of potassium salt resources in Lop Nur, Xinjiang as a national first-class key geological exploration project. The 305 Engineering Office of the State Science and Technology Commission also listed the research of this project as a national key scientific and technological project in the Ninth Five-Year Plan. During this period, Professor Wang Boli, as the leader of the special group of potash salt in Xinjiang 305 Project, led technicians from scientific research institutes and Xinjiang Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources to Lop Nur five times and collected thousands of samples. Finally, a thick glauberite deposit was found in the dry salt lake in the north of Lop Nur, that is, in the north of Luobei Depression. The shallow part of glauberite deposit contains extremely thin halite deposit, in which potassium-rich brine is stored. Glauberite is the product of precipitation after carbonate and before halite in salt evaporation series, which belongs to the second stage of salt evaporation (sulfate stage). According to the traditional theory, there can be no potassium in the glauberite deposition section.
Through the scientific arrangement of drilling engineering, one of the largest potassium sulfate brine deposits in the world has surfaced so far. Wang Erli project team broke away from the traditional three-stage model and innovatively put forward the two-stage potassium formation theory of glauberite, which expanded the field of potassium salt exploration. To this end, they excitedly named the original nameless land Luobei concave land. From 200 1 to 2002, under the guidance of two-stage metallogenic theory, they discovered two medium-sized potash deposits in other salt lakes in lop Nur.