Abstract:In this paper, the authors conducted detailed researches on the rarely-reported nepheline jades in the aspects of petrography, mineral chemistry, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray powder diffraction, with a discussion on their petrogenesis. The jades in this study belong to the "floating blue flower" variety and are mainly composed of jadeite, nepheline and hornblende with minor Ba-aluminosilicates, assuming a tubular texture. Jadeites in these samples have two generations: the earlier ones are euhedral and show regular oscillatory zoning, indicating iterative replenishment of diagenetic fluids during the growth of jadeites; the earlier jadeites are partly replaced by later fine-grained jadeite ± amphibole, indicating the alteration caused by later fluids. On the basis of its modes of occurrence and compositions, nepheline can be divided into two types, i.e., K-poor nepheline and K-rich nepheline, in which the former occurs along the grain boundaries of the euhedral jadeites whereas the latter fills in the space between the euhedral jadeites. The textural features indicate that the nepheline jades were directly precipitated from fluids. The mineral assemblage and compositions suggest that the fluids were rich in Na, Al, Si, K, Ba with small amounts of such major elements as Ca, Fe and Mg, while the trace elements are characterized by enrichment of LREE, HFSE, Sr, etc. Combining the phase relations between the minerals in the samples with the results from previous studies, the authors hold that the crystallization p-t conditions for the jadeites should be confined to 6~14 GPa and 300~450℃. The nepheline in the jades represents the precipitation product of fluids after decompression.