Formation of Ores
Transcript of Formation of Ores
Formation of Ores
Q. What is the most profitable mineral
commodity that is mined today?
A. Sand and Gravel
It doesn’t have to be flashy to make money …
http://eps.berkeley.edu/courses/eps50/documents/lecture31.mineralresources.pdf
What is an ore?
An ore is an aggregate of minerals
from which one or more minerals
can be extracted profitably.
Economic Geology
• Understanding of how metalliferous minerals
become concentrated key to ore deposits…
• Getting them out at a profit determines
where/when they come out
http://eps.berkeley.edu/courses/eps50/documents/lecture31.mineralresources.pdf
Ores
• Principally we discuss ores as sources of
metals
• However, there are many other resources
bound in minerals which we find useful
• How many can we think of?
Ore Deposits
• A deposit contains an unusually high
concentration of particular element(s)
• This means the element(s) have been
concentrated in a particular area due to
some process
• What sort of processes might concentrate
these elements in one place?
Ore minerals
• Minerals with economic value are ore
minerals
• Minerals often associated with ore minerals
but which do not have economic value are
gangue minerals
• Key to economic deposits are geochemical
traps metals are transported and
precipitated in a very concentrated fashion
– Gold is almost 1,000,000 times less abundant
than is iron
Gold Au• Distribution of Au in the crust = 3.1 ppb by
weight 3.1 units gold / 1,000,000,000 units
of total crust = 0.00000031% Au
• Concentration of Au needed to be
economically viable as a deposit = few g/t
3 g / 1000kg = 3g/ 1,000,000 g = 0.00031%
Au
• Need to concentrate Au at least 1000-fold to
be a viable deposit
• Rare mines can be up to a few percent gold
(extremely high grade)!
Less than 15 oxides occur in
quantities of > 0.5% in crustal rocks
An ore is a geochemical anomaly.
Some unusual process must:
1) remove specific elements, compounds
or minerals from ordinary rock,
2) transport these elements,
compounds, or minerals
3) concentrate the elements,
compounds, or minerals preferentially at
one spot or zone where the transport
stops.
Formation of ore
removalconcentrate
the primary mechanisms for
concentrating minerals into ores
involves either:
sorting by density
sorting by solubility.
• Sedimentary
– Placer – weathering of primary minerals and transport
by streams (Gold, diamonds, other)
– Banded Iron Formations – 90%+ of world’s iron tied
up in these
– Evaporite deposits – minerals like gypsum, halite
deposited this way
– Laterites – leaching of rock leaves residual materials
behind (Al, Ni, Fe)
– Supergene – reworking of primary ore deposits
remobilizes metals (often over short distances)
Ore deposit environments
Weathering and erosion as a
mechanism of separating and
concentrating chemical
constituents
Mechanical weathering and erosion
can concentrate minerals
We’ve already seen examples -
Wave action concentrates sand on a beach
Quartz sand typically mined from ancient beaches, sand bars, etc.
nuggets
lumps of metal
gold nugets: concentration by abrasion
brittle quartz removed by weathering
gold left behind
Placer deposits.
placers: deposits of heavy mineral
particles in stream bed.
Steps for making a placer
1. weathering removes mineral
particles from country rock.
2. kinetic energy of high velocity
stream transports mineral particles.
3. where kinetic energy drops
suddenly, high density particles stop,
lower density particles continue
density contrasts are substantial:
quartz - 2.65gm/cc.
gold - 19gm/cc.
Panning – same principle as a
placer, but in a pan
economically important placers:
gold nuggets
silver nuggets
platinum nuggets.
diamonds (carbon).
zircon (zirconium silicate).
uraninite (uranium oxide).
rutile (titanium oxide).
Chemical weathering and erosion
can concentrate minerals
Bauxite – aluminum ore
Progressive dissolution of silica from clays
in wet soils will eventually turn the
kaolinite clay Al2Si2O5(OH)4
Into
gibbsite Al(OH)3.
these soils become bauxite, a major ore of aluminum.
Bauxite – associated with
tropical climates
Ore deposit environments• Magmatic
– Cumulate deposits – fractional crystallization processes can
concentrate metals (Cr, Fe, Pt)
– Pegmatites – late staged crystallization forms pegmatites
and many residual elements are concentrated (Li, Ce, Be,
Sn, and U)
• Hydrothermal
– Magmatic fluid - directly associated with magma
– Porphyries - Hot water heated by pluton
– Skarn – hot water associated with contact metamorphisms
– Exhalatives – hot water flowing to surface
– Epigenetic – hot water not directly associated with pluton
Settling of crystals in a magma
chamber
can concentrate minerals
Spinel Group of Minerals
all relatively dense
• spinel: MgAl2O4
• Fe2+, Mn2+, Zn2+ substitute for Mg2+
• Fe3+, Cr3+, Mn3+ substitute for Al3+
• Ti4+ and V3+ can also substitute into the structure.
Basaltic magmas contain about
ten percent Fe
a few percent Ti
and trace amounts of Cr, Mn, and V
Under favorable circumtances these
become concentrated in the spinels.
Since the spinel crystals are dense, they can
sink to the bottom of a slowly cooling magma
body and make layers of ore
basaltic magma: 2500 kg/m3
Cr spinel: 4800 kg/m3
Liquid Immiscibility
Oil and water
don’t mix …
As magmas cool, they can split into two
liquids of different composition and
density.
– One of these liquids is the silica-rich melt. It
has the most volume
– The other, typically much smaller in volume,
can be rich in metal oxides, sulfides or
carbonates.
High T Low T
Desirable element preferentially concentrated into
low-volume melt
Types of Immiscible Melts
Oxide melts can be rich in Fe (Fe2O3, hematite)
and Ti (FeTiO3, ilmanite).
Sulfide melts can be rich in Ni, Cu, and the
platinum-group elements, in addition to iron
sulfur (FeS, pyrrhotite).
Carbonate melts can be rich in niobium, tantalum,
rare earths, copper, thorium, and phosphorous.
Dissolution by water can
concentrate chemicals
Geochemical Traps
• Similar to chemical sedimentary rocks – must leach
material into fluid, transport and deposit ions as
minerals…
• pH, redox, T changes and mixing of different fluids
results in ore mineralization
• Cause metals to go from soluble to insoluble
• Sulfides (reduced form of S) strongly binds metals
many important metal ore minerals are sulfides!
• Oxides – Oxidizing environments form
(hydroxy)oxide minerals, very insoluble metal
concentrations (especially Fe, Mn, Al)
Aqueous fluids in magma
�As magma cools, the volatiles (mostly water and carbon dioxide) that
they contain can form super-critical fluids.
supercritical fluids are on the verge of making the phase transition from
liquid to gas.
because of their extremely high temperature, many elements are
soluble.
These fluids can concentrate copper, molybdenum, gold, tin, tungsten
and lead.
The fluids from a large pluton can invade surrounding rocks, along
cracks called hydrothermal veins).
Hydrothermal Ore Deposits
• Thermal gradients induce convection of
water – leaching, redox, and cooling
create economic mineralization
Aqueous
fluids from
granitic
magma
have
invaded
surrounding
rock
porphery copper ore
These deposits are typically very low grade,
but can be huge.
Porphyry copper-molybdenum deposits are
one example
Skarns
acidic fluids from a granitic pluton invade and react with limestones
The limestone is dissolved and replaced by:
Silicate minerals,
sulfides of iron, copper, zinc, lead and silver,
oxides of iron, tin, and tungsten
gold
Geothermal systems
magma is the source of heat
but the water is just groundwater, and not
derived from the magma
High temperature geothermal systems occur where
ground water comes in contact with magma near
volcanoes.
Example: Yellowstone
Mechanisms that involve oxidation state of
the water
Ground water can carry dissolved materials.
These can precipitate out of solution if the
water becomes more or less oxidizing.
Example: Mississippi Valley Type lead-zinc deposits
ore minerals occur as veins in limestone that overlie a sandstone.
Ores include: lead as PbS, zinc as ZnS, copper as CuFeS2, and flourine as CaF2.
very saline brines containing sulfate ions (SO42-). These
brines transported the metals in solution through the sandstone.
The sulfate was reduced to S2-, perhaps by reaction with methane, and the minerals then precipitated out.
Example: uranium ore
soluble U6+ is produced during the weathering of igneous rocks.
U6+ was transported by groundwater until it encounters reducing conditions. It is reduced to U4+ and precipitates as uranium oxide.
Uranium oxide (yellow) replacing petrified wood
Buried wood makes ground
water more reducing, caused
uranium to drop out of solution
Large deposit in Canada formed
this way
Uranium deposits occur at or near an
unconformity between a sandstone (upper unit)
and a graphite (carbon) bearing gneiss (lower
unit). The sandstone provides the conduit for
hydrothermal fluids. The gneiss provides the
reducing conditions.
Marine hydrothermal fields
common on mid-ocean ridges
Massive sulfide deposits
• Hot, briny, water
leaches metals
from basaltic
ocean rocks
• Comes in contact
with cool ocean
water
• Sulfides
precipitate
1. Sea water percolates thought the hot (>300C) basaltic
crust, preferentially dissolving oxides and sulfides from the
rock
2. Water discharges into ocean, minerals precipitate as
soon as the water cools.
3. This process can concentrate copper, lead, zinc and
silver as volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits.
4. The minerals precipitate at different places in the
system, since they precipitate at different temperatures.
• �
Mechanism for producing the ore