[Americas Jouasat or Scimsce, Brantey Vot.ume, Vor, 258-A, 1960, P, 234-241] RELATION OF RESERVES OF THE ELEMENTS TO THEIR CRUSTAL ABUNDANCE V. E. McKELVEY* LU, S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California ABSTRACT, The tonnage of minable reserves in short tons (R) for many elements in the United States ig equal to crustal ebundance in percent (A) times 10" 19 10%, and all 2} clements for which data are available have ratios in the range R= A 10% to 10", ‘The linear relation that appears to prevail between reserves and abundance for all except the most abundant elements is us in, forecasting reserves in large segments of the earth's crust or over the world at large, For purposes of estimating world reserves of un ple clement «Haare af A'X 1D" to So probably wil phe th ht erder of mag nitude. An interesting and surprising relation exists between the minable reserves of various elements in the United States and the abundance of the same ele- ments in the earth’s crust. The tonnage of minable reserves in short tons (R) for nearly half the 26 elements on which data are available is equal fo erustal abundance in percent (A) times 10° to 10%; about one-fourth of the others have ratios within the range R = A X 10* to 10%, and all have ratios within the range R = A X 10® to 10” (fig, 1). The relation of reserves to abun- dance appears to be nearly linear, except perhaps in the range of abundances greater than 2 percent, where tonnage appears to increase al a rate that is less than directly proportional to increase in abundance. ‘Two aspects of this relation are unexpected—its linearity over most of the abundance range, and the high correlation between reserves and abundance for all the elements on which data are available, The mere facts that the known reserves of abundant elements such as iron are large, and the reserves of rare elements such as gold are small are enough to suggest that crustal abundance is one of the factors that determines the tonnage of minable reserves of a given clement; bat as the concentration factors (that is, the ratio between grade of the ore and abundance of the element in the crust) of minable ores range from about 3 for the more abundant elements to nearly 10,000 for the rare ones, we might have expected that the relation of abundance to tonnage would have been an exponential one, And even if we assumed that some mathematical relation does exist in nature between abundance and tonnage, we might have expected that this relation would have been concealed for many elements by other fac- tors. For example, if the area studied were not a representative sample of the earth's crust, the relation between reserves and abundance would be cloudy, if evident at all. Differences in the geochemical behavior among the elements (eg. the tendency of some to be dispersed in common minerals rather than concentrated in ores), differences in the amenability of the elements to artifi- cial concentration, and differences in the extent to which they have been sought and explored might conceal a close relation between reserves and abundance, even if one existed. What, then, is the explanation of the close relation shown in figure 1 between reserves and abundanc Examination of the factors that might conceal a relation between reserves and abundance indicates that they do not apply to an appreciable extent to most of the elements for which reserve data are available in the United States. * Publication authorized by the Director, U.S. Geological Survey. 234V.E. McKelvey 235 F [ L ere Fig. 1. Domestic reserves of elements compared 10 their abundance in the earth's crust. Tonnage of ore minable now is shown by a dot; womnage vf lower-geade ores whose exploitation depends upon future technological advances or higher prices is shown by a bar, The abundance of tungsten is from Green (1953) : all other abundance data are those of Vinogradow (1956) for a crust consisting essentially of two pasts of acidic rocks and one part of basic rocks. The estimates of reserves of uranium are from J. C. Johnson (1959) , and those on potash were furnished by C. L, Jones of the U. S, Geological Survey. All other reserve estimates were. psepared by members of the U. S, Geological Survey and U, S. Bureau of Mines and published in Mineral Resources of the United States (1948), the President's Materials Policy Commission reports (1952), and U. S, Bureau of Mines Bull (1956). With regard to the question as to whether or not the United States is a repre- sentative sample of the earth’s crust, the United States is a large area, about one-seventeenth of the land area of the world, exclusive of Antartica; it may not contain as large an exposed shield area as other areas of comparable size, but it does have all the major kinds of geologic terranes found anywhere, and may he accepted as a reasonably representative sample of the earth's crust, Al- though the discoveries still heing made in the United States amply show that it is incompletely explored, it is reasonable to assume that the exploration come pleted has been intensive enough to indicate the relative magnitude of the reserves of many elements, As for the influence of the mineralogy of ore ele- ments on their amenability to processing, technologie problems do make diff- cult the recovery of certain elements from some mineralogical types of236 VE, McKelvey-—Relation of Reserves occurrences—nickel from nickel silicates, for example—but for most elements the important mineralogical types are susceptible to treatment; in other words, gold. silver. copper. and many other elements can be recovered from all their quantitatively importeat deposits that contain more than the cut-off grade, And most of the elements in the group studied ate ones that either form ores. or. like cadmium, are dispersed in ores of other elements from which they can be recovered as co-produets ‘Although all this applies to many elements in the United States—enough, aparently, to bring out the close correlation hetween reserves and abundance shown for several elements on figure 1—it does not apply to all, Aluainumn is, a good example of an element that shows a relatively large departure from the idealized regression lines of R = A X 10" to 10 on figure 1, conceivably because of the influence of some of the factors named abave. Unlike many other metals, aluminum has been in demand for only a few decades. and the terrane of the United States has not heen as thoroughly prospected for it as for most other metals, Moreover. aluminum cannot yet be recovered economically from most silicate minerals, so aluminum reserves include only the oxides, Aud these are formed mainly as the result of tropical or subtropical weathering processes that do not operate to an appreciable extent within the limits of the continental United States. The net effect of all of these factors is to yield smaller reserves of aluminum. compared to other elements, tha otherwise might be expected for such an abundant element. The scatter or variation in the reserve-abundance ratios for all the ele ments shown on figure 1 conceivably could be the result of factors siexilar to those that seem 10 yield the comparatively small aluminum reserves, In fact. examination of the distribution of elements on figure 1 shows that most of those that lie close to the R = A X 10" regression line are ones that were sought and used in ancient times, mainly because their ores were easily smeltable, Those that show a rather large departure from this line are mostly ones rela tively new to commerce and industry; they have been sought only in recent times and some of their mineralogical types of occurrences are still not work- able.’ Additional exploration and technological advances probably will increase the minable reserves of this group, enough perhaps to bring them into the range of R= A X 10° to 10" observed for the other grow ‘The explanation of the linear relation between reserves and abundance that prevails over most of the abundance range seems to lie in a combination of compensating factors. The grade-frequency distribution of the elements. over the range of their concentration in the earth's crust, seems to be approxieiately log-normal in analyzed samples (Ahrens, 1957); the largest amount of each clement occurs in rocks whose grade is not far from the average in the crust, and the amount in each grade-class decreases progressively to the maximum grade in ores. which may be a few to a few thousand times that of the erustal average. In the range of the higher concentrations in ores. tonnage increases * Tin is a notable exception to this generalization. Tt may be that for this element, and pechaps some others, the United States is not a representative sample of the rarth's crust, and that it simply does not contain a proportionate share of the world's minable deposit, Unless some geologic reason for this is evident, however (and it is not evident for tin), such a comelysion must be accepted cautiously,of the Elements to their Crustal Abundance 237 exponentially as grade decreases (Lasky, 1950; see also the tonnage estimates for various elements in the President’s Materials Policy Commission Report, x. 2. 1952}, ‘The amount in each grade-class varies from element to element, but the pattern of distribution is seen from the data on many elements to be generally similar in all. Now. at concentration factors of J, the relation between tonnage and abundance is linear, Because of the general similarity in the pattern of grade- frequency distributions among the elements, the relation between tonnage and abundance is probably neatly linear also when the concentration factors are nearly wmiform fromm element to element, As shown in figure 2. the concentra- ST wf 7 Lx, F Ks Lo oe Yo Fig. 2 Cutoff grade of minable ores compared to erustal abundance. Several con- cemration factors (C}_ aver the observed range of cut-ofl grade and abundance are indi cated by idealized regression Tines, tion factor at the cut-off grade of minable ores in the intermediate range of abundance varies from about 100 to about 1,000—a rather narrow range, com- pared to the variation in abundance and tonnage; and the concentration fac- tors of minable ores of the abundant and rare elements are within about an order of magnitude of this range. The relatively small variation in the concen- tration factor among the moderately abundant elements seems to explain the linear relation between reserves and tonnage among them. 80 the problem is reduced to explaining the extension of this relation to the rare elements whose concentration factors are about an order of magnitude greater than those of intermediate abundance.238 V. E, McKelvey—Relation of Reserves The cutoff grade for each element, of course, is partly fixed by mining and refining costs, and the good relation of cutoff grade to abundance shown in figure 2 suggests that costs are strongly influenced by abundance, This rela- tion was found and stated in a somewhat different way by John R. Menke (quoted by Schurr and Marschak, 1950, p. 22), who found, by comparing the price of refined minerals with the grade in marginal ore bodies, that the cost of mining and refining per Ub. of ore of widely differing minerals is re markably alike... In other srds, thea, the cost of minerals. won by similar mining methods is\ determined in good past by the number of bs. of ore mined per Ib, of pure mineral, (italies Shurr and Marschak’s) Cost is also influenced by other factors—demand, ease of concentrating and refining the ore, and so on, What has apparently happeried with rare elements such as gold and mercury is that exhaustion of high-grade ores. coupled with a combination of technology and ore mineralogy that yield relatively low recovery costs, have both forced and permitted the mining of ores one or two orders of magnitude lower in grade than the highest grade ores of these elements, This has made available an exponentially larger tonnage of ore—enough to yield reserves of a size more comparable to those of elements in the intermediate range. This has not yet happened to any appreciable extent to the more abun- dant clements, for their cutoff grades have not yet been much lowered; as advancing technology and exhaustion of high grade deposits permits and forces mining of lower grade ores, however, minable reserves of the abundant ele- ments will increase to values closer to the ideal regression lines shown in figure 1 (see data there on low grade resources of iron and aluminum), The finearity of the relation between reserves and abundance shown in figure 1 is thus almost fortuitous for the rare elements, and more data (and analysis of data already available) are needed on the relation between grade and tonnage for each element before we wiil be able to predict minable ton- fiages available at lower cutoffs, But the empirical relation shown in figure 1 has practical application now in estimating reserves available at a given cut- off in large areas or in the world as a whole. and also in the evaluation of estimates already made. These applications are indicated by the comparisons shown in table I between known world reserves and the minimum tonnages of minable ores that might be expected on two assumptions: one, that the rest of the world contains at least as much minable material in direct proportion to its size as is known in the United States; the other, that the world contains at {east as much minable material in proportion to its size as is known or expected in the United States on the basis of R = A X 10” to 10". A simple extrapolation of the known reserves of the United States to the rest of the world makes no assumption that a relation exists between crustal abundance and reserves, but merely assumes that large segments of the con- tinental crust are similar in the aggregate in their content of ore, and that the United States is a good sample both with regard to composition and to degree of exploration, This approach was suggested by Nolan (1950) as a basis for estimating potential resources in covered areas within belts broadly favorable for the occurrence of ore, and it is a sound method for this purpose, It cannot be applied to the world at large, however, for elements, such as germanium,o} the Elements to their Crustal Abundance 239 that have not been sought or explored. Applied to other elements it has the danger of underestimating reserves that have heen inadequately explored or that for some reason are not well represented in minable quantities in the United States, And the assumption that large segments of the crust ate homo- geneous in their content of ores of various elements is challenged by the un- even distribation of known reserves over the world (see Carlisle, 1959, p. 350). For example, most the world’s important tin, diamond, nicket, and molybdenum deposits are restricted to a few areas, and their distribution gives the impres- sion that no segment of the crust is representative of the whole. Tamu 1 Comparison of known and expectable minable tonnages of several elements in the world (short tons) B. Tonnage forecast €. Tonnage forecast from known U.S, from R=AXI0'10 A. Known reserves reserves X 173" 10° 17.3" Antimony 3.8 x 10" 2A x 10° 952-52 % 0 Copper 23 10" 43 X10" 12-12 x 10° Tron 5.9.x 10" 43 X 10" 8.0.x 10" Gold 34x 10 28 X 10" 02-2 x 10" Lead 45x 10 4x 10 28-28 Ww Mercury 14 x 10" 38 X10" 1-10x1e To 73x 10" = 78-78 x 10" Aluminum, 64x 10" 21x10 1400 x 10° Chromium 23 x 10 04 x 10" 30-30 x 10 Fhyorine, 11x 10° 64x 10 110-1100 x 10° Manganese 49 < 10" a3 Ke 17-110 10° Thorium 92. 10 78 Xx 10 220-2200 x 0 Tungsten 13 x 10° 14x 10" 61-610 x 10" Uranium, 88 x 10 33X10" 45 —450 x 10 Zine 8.0 x 10" 3x 14-140 x 10" * Data on reserves of uranium and thorium from Bowie (1959) ; all other data from Presi- deu’s Materials Policy Commission (1952) * The land area of the world (52,300,000 square miles excluding polar regions) is about 17.3 times that of the United States (3,022,000 square miles), Kiown U.S, reserves ace extrapolated to the world in direct proportion to area of land surface. * Assumes, from the relations shown in figure 1, that the United States contains minable reserves of all elements (except the most abundant) equal to their crustal abundance in ‘pereent times 10" or 10”, The mivable tonnage so derived is then extrapolated to the rest of the world as in column B, Because both figures 1 and 2 suggest that 10" is 2 factor too Bh for the abundant elements, the estimates for iron and alumina are based only on @ factor of 10. Nevertheless, the assumption that the relatively unexplored part of the world contains tonnages proportionate to that in the known part is a promising means of estimating world reserves of the better known elements, and its effi- cacy is well shown by compating columns A and B of table 1, The first group cof elements in this table are those valued since ancient times; with the exeep- tion of tin and lead, the estimates prepared hy this method for these elements240 V. E, McKelvey—Relation of Reserves are extremely close to the known reserves, The estimates for the second group of elements, those sought and used only in recent times, do not compare as favorably with known reserves as those for the first group, With the exception of manganese. however. they are all within an order of magnitude of the esti- mates of known reserves. Lacking a better approach, estimates prepared by this method surely would be satisfactory, at least for the well explored elements in the known segment of the erust. ‘An estimate of the world reserves, or of any large segment of the world’s Jand area, based on the assumption that minable tonnages of the elements are proportional to crustal abundance not only has the foundation carried by ob servations in a supposedly representative sample, but it has the added strength of theory to meet the challenge provided by the uneven distribution of known, deposits—that is, it gives reason for believing that the distribution of known deposits in relatively unexplored parts of the world is more a function of chance discovery than of representative sampling, And it provides a basis for estimating world reserves of elements that have not heen adequately explored in the Linited States or other repreesmtative areas, Column € of table 1 is based on this assumption, Comparison with column A shows that for the first group of metals, forecasts of world reserves prepared in this way bracket the estimates of known reserves far four of the elements, and their maxima are higher than the estimates of known reserves for all ele- ments except gold (the most sought for element of all, the one whose reserves are perhaps best known. and the one whose cut-off grade has decreased the most over the history of its mining and use) : in other words, estimates based on the maximum reserve-abundance ratio (R = A X 10°) observed in the United States exceed the estimates of known reserves by a margin that allows for additional discoveries. Estimates prepared in this way for the second group aze all higher than the estimates of known reserves and they suggest that this group of elements— relatively new to commerce—has heen poorly explored indeed. This probability is somewhat counter-balanced, however, by the fact that these clements were not used in ancient times for the good reason that their mineralogical types were refractory, and some of them still are. If 1.4 X 10% tons of aluminum exist in deposits of comparable grade to that in the known bauxite depos much of it probably is in silicate minerals not workable by available tech- nology: iin spite of the danger that this method of estimating reserves in unknown areas is likely to over-estimate the tonnages available under present technologie and economic conditions. it seems the better of the two in that it allows for new discoveries. and permits the forecast of previously unexplored elements, Con- sidering the uncertainties involved in the data used to prepare column C, the numbers shown in column C are unnecessarily refined. For purposes of mating world reserves of unexplored elements, a figure of something like A X 10” to 10" probably will give the right order of magnitude. Forecasts made either by extrapolating known reserves in a small area to a large one, or by extrapolating on the basis of a reserve-abundance ratio, yield minimal estimates, Both methods imply that reserves in the known areaof the Elements to their Crustal Abundance 241 are fully established and they asstime that only some minimum thickness of the earth's crust is within the reach of exploration and anining: they also assume that the technologie and economic conditions that have established the present cutoffs will remain constant, Advances in technology will invalidate these as- sumptions and require new and larger estimates, Nevertheless, stich forecasts are useful in indicating the order of magnitude of reserves that can he expected over the world or large segments of it with the technology available now. And it seems reasonable to expect that better knowledge of the relations between concentration factor, size of individual deposits, and tonnage of various ele: ments will permit us to predict rather accurately how much ore of @ given grade is contained in representative segments of the earth's crust ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Lam much indehted to P. W. Guild, M. R. Klepper, W. L, Newman, and W. G, Schlecht for reading and constructively critieising this paper: and I am especially grateful to E. M, Shoemaker, who contributed much to the explana- tion presented here for the relation between reserves and abundance Abrens, L. H., 1957, Lognormal-type disteibutions—II: Geochim, et Cosmochim, Acta, ¥ 205.212, HU. 1959, The uranium and thorium resources of the Commonwealth: Royal Arts Jour, ¥. 107, p. TOLTI5, sald, 1959, Nonfuel mineral resources, in Natural resources, M. R. Huberty and New York, McGraw till, p, 328-367, ‘eochemical table of the elements for 1953: Geol, Sec. 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