Mineral Resources: Geology, Exploration, Economics and Environment

Prof. M. K. Panigrahi
Department of Geology and Geophysics
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

Module – 1
Introduction

Mineral resources are essential for the economic development of any country. Take the
case of the developed countries like the United States, Canada, Australia and so on - in
these countries, the initial phase of their economic development largely was contributed
by their mineral resources which they exploited for the development of their industry.

In the Indian context the scenario is not that very distinct as regards to the role of mineral
resources in the initial phase of development of the economy. It is primarily due to the
fact that India was under colonial rule for more than a millennium before actually
starting to exploit its mineral resources. We lack resources of many of the important
metals like the precious metals, base metals and critical metals for energy resources and
we have to largely depend on import of these metals from other countries. Therefore,
there is a need for the augmentation of the available mineral resources for better
economic development and industrial growth.

This course is essentially a first level undergraduate course, taught in many universities
and institutes by different course names as Economic Geology or Ore Geology. The
concepts facts and figures that will be discussed here have been taken from available
textbooks given at the end of this lecture note. Although these notes would suffice for
this course, I strongly encourage to read text books if it is within your easy reach.

The objective of this course is to give an overview of the subject, and the very first
aspect of mineral resources that needs to be understood is Geology. It is basically the
science of mineral deposit formation that attempts to answer very fundamental queries as
to how these mineral resources form, where they formed and when (in geological time
periods) they formed. In other words, we intend to develop the rationale behind
availability or distribution of these mineral resources across different continents present
in rocks of all geological ages. Once we are equipped with the scientific knowledge
about the mineral resources and their formation, this can be very effectively utilized for

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exploration of these mineral resources in areas where they are not known to be existing
as of now.

Another important aspect of mineral resources involves their exploitation, use of

technology and different scientific methods for recovering these mineral resources once
they are discovered. The activities of ‘mining’ are planned and executed by the Mining
Engineers based on the inputs given by the geologist about the quality/quantity
parameters and certain other geological attributes essential for the mining (those will be
discussed in these courses as well).

As we will see later, these mineral resources are essentially economic commodities and
more importantly, are a special class of resources. We have to see how effective policies
should be formulated for their exploitation in a sustainable manner. These aspects are
dealt under a specialized multidisciplinary subject called Mineral Economics or
Economics of Nonrenewable Resources that needs to be understood and appreciated.

Mineral resources exploitation also does affect the environment in many ways starting
from the time that they are being explored. Once they are discovered, the exploitation
processes, several downstream processes of extraction of metals, various industrial
processes of end use in mechanical, chemical and electronic industries, cause a lot of
degradation of the environment, disturbs the ecology, if enough remedial measures are
not taken. We have to see as to how such type of effects could be at least evaluated, and
whether there are remedial measures which can be taken for the deleterious
environmental impact – this is also is our responsibility. Therefore, these are the four
aspects that fall in the purview of the subject of Mineral Resources.

As we all know, we can define minerals as inorganic crystalline solids. Minerals

essentially occur in nature, but they can also be synthesized in the laboratory. Therefore,
the missing of the term ‘natural’ is intentional here, we can take them as inorganic
crystalline solids, they are the minerals of different metals / non-metals as we will see the
classification. ‘Resource’ is an economic connotation – resources are essential for
economic development as has been stated already.

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 Common rock and soil forming
making up the bulk of the Earth’s
crust, often useful raw materials
Silicates for Industries such as glass,
The Mineral Kingdom ceramic, refractory etc.

Non-Silicates
Mostly constitute the
mineral resources

Fig.1 A broad tw-fold classification of the mineral kingdom

We can now say that minerals which are either direct raw materials for various industries
(we know what the industries are - the infrastructure industry, the electrical and
electronic industry, transportation industry, aviation industry, refractory fertilizer and so
on and so forth) or are the sources of metals which are essential for various industries
constitute Mineral Resources. Therefore, all industries either directly or indirectly
depend on mineral resources as either direct raw materiasl for them or after the metals
are extracted from the minerals, they are used in different industries. Therefore, when
these two are combined - minerals which are direct raw materials for various industries,
and those containing elements or metals of high economic value are our ‘mineral
resources’ which we will be discussing in subsequent chapters.

We all know why metals are so much sought after. The metals, for example the transition
metals, the precious metals like gold, platinum group of metals (platinum, palladium,
osmium, iridium) and many of the metals like tin, tungsten, titanium, vanadium, the rare
earth metals and so on - these metals have got very special properties. Their electrical
conductivity, thermal conductivity, malleability, ductility and so many other properties
make them very special and suited for many industries, many products for modern
technology. That is the reason why these metals are so much sought after. The non-
metals, the non-metallic minerals are also equally important as we will be seeing them.

We can divide the mineral kingdom broadly into two categories, the silicates and the
non-silicates. Silicates are the common rock forming minerals making up the bulk of the
Earth’s crust. Often, they are used as raw materials for industries such as the glass,
ceramic and refractory industries. They are constituted of the SiO4 fundamental
tetrahedral building blocks which combine in many different proportions to give the

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range of silicates as you have already studied in your elementary level courses. They are
nesosilicate, sorosilicate, cyclosilicates, inosilicate, phyllosilicates and tectosilicates.

Some of the minerals like silica (SiO2) is a raw material for glass industry and many of
the clays are raw material for ceramic industry. The alumino- silicate minerals such as
kyanite sillimanite and andalusite are raw materials for the refractory industry and so on.
We know that they are economically important even though they may not be as very
economically valuable as the precious metals.

The non-silicates mostly constitute the mineral resources as we see them here.

The oxides or the hydroxides of metals like aluminium, iron, titanium, chromium,
manganese, tin and uranium mainly constitute the ore minerals of these metals. They are
either the primary minerals forming in different environments or sometimes the product
of oxidation of primary minerals when they are exposed to the surface. Metals like
aluminium, iron, titanium, occur in oxide form in the bulk of their ores.

No much of metal carbonates are important as mineral resources; but that they also
sometimes are results of alteration of the primary ore minerals which get oxidized on the
surface in the presence of carbon dioxide to give the carbonates. Some of them like
calcium carbonate which constitutes the limestone which is an important raw material for
cement industry.

The sulphide minerals constitute the most important class of the ore minerals, which we
will see in a short while. Most of the transition metals (Mo, Fe, Co, Ni, Cd, Cu, Zn, Hg,
Ag) and base metals (e.g Pb), and the semi metals (As, Sb, Bi) do form their sulphides.
These minerals constitute the resources. Some transition metals (Nb, Ta, Cr, Fe, Mn etc)
occur dominantly as oxide ore minerals. This diversity in mineralogy of ores is
controlled by their very basic geochemical characteristics and affinities of these metals
for which the Periodic Table gives the first-hand information. There are a few important
sulfates such as gypsum (hydrated CaSO4) and barite (BaSO4) which are important
industrial minerals.

Phosphates mainly of thorium and the rare earth elements are available in the form of
monazite and apatite, the latter mineral being an important material for our fertilizer

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industry. We also do look for such kind of minerals. Some metals for example, the noble
metals like gold and platinum, they do occur in their native form. Copper also is
available sometime in a native form under some special conditions. As far as the non-
metals are concerned, sulfur which is an important resource for fertilizer, as well as
pharmaceutical industry, also occurs in nature in native form under some very
specialized conditions. Carbon is an element that constitutes energy resource (coal and
hydrocarbon) and precious stone, that is diamond, which also forms under very restricted
conditions. These are the some of the examples of native metals/elements.

From the wide compositional spectrum of minerals that constitute mineral resources (the
way we have defined them) at the very first sight indicate that they are results of widely
varying processes under diverse geological environments. For example, for the oxides to
form, we need to have an environment where the oxidation state should be favourable or
to have appropriate partial pressure of carbon dioxide to form the carbonates. Thus,
mineralogy of these resources is the most fundamental aspect and needs to be studied in
details as regards to their stabilities and mechanism of formation in natural
environments. (We of course attempt to mimic the conditions in the laboratory knowing
fully well that in nature they may form in much longer time spans than the time of
conducting an experiment).

We could acquire a good amount of insight to the diversity of mineralogy of the mineral
resources by looking at the Periodic Table of elements. The periodic table is one of the
very fundamental contribution to science. The periodic table of elements guides us in
understanding many of the chemical phenomena anywhere in the crust. Since we are
interested or the focus of our subject is mineral resources, which are essentially chemical
species, their behaviour must be abiding by fundamental chemical principles that the
Periodic Table indicates.

The periodic table presented here (Fig. 2) has been taken from the book of Stephen
Kessler, where you see the elements are differently shaded - the nonferrous metals, the
elements for fertilizer (sodium, potassium, calcium; nitrogen phosphorus and sulphur).
(Nitrogen of course, comes from the atmosphere), the semi metals arsenic, antimony and
bismuth, the metals like tin and lead, the coinage group of metal (copper, silver, gold),

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the platinum group of metals, the transition metal and the rare-earth metals are marked
with different patterns and shades.

Fig. 2 - The periodic Table of elements in the context of Mineral Resources (source:
Kesler,

Even though we can go on studying it for as much minute details as possible, we can
briefly discuss them here. For example, a metal like chromium rigidly occurs in only
plus 3 oxidation state in the primary rock forming cycle, although chromium also occurs
in 6+ oxidation state in different specific surface environment. This metal chromium is
very restricted in its occurrence, in its type of deposits because it forms only one ore
mineral that is chromite (Cr2FeO3), and it also does form a very restricted type of mineral
resource. Because of the strong compatible nature (to be discussed later), Cr is enriched
in mafic cumulates from basaltic melts and forms rich chromite layers under very
specific physico-chemical environment (details to be discussed later).

Metals like a manganese occurs in variable oxidation states from plus 2 to plus 7, but it
generally occurs in its oxides in mineral resources. There are more than 6 manganese
oxide minerals (you can get their names and compositions from any fundamental text
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book). It is the oxides of manganese which are recovered as the ore mineral. Metals like
iron has equal affinity for sulfur as well as oxygen. Therefore, it occurs as pyrite which is
the major sulfide mineral of iron (iron disuflide - pyrite) and also its oxides (hematite
and magnetite) which constitute the major bulk of the ore.

Metals like zinc, cadmium, mercury, copper, and the semi metals arsenic, antimony and
bismuth essentially form their sulphides. Amongst the high field strength elements like
titanium, vanadium, zirconium, hafnium, tantalum form their oxides, in exception to
molybdenum which forms its sulphide.

The lanthanides, mostly occur in the common rock forming minerals or as phosphates.
The important resource of Th is a phosphate mineral (monazite). They have very
interesting alloying property for which they are very much sought after, for improving
the magnetic properties of iron. They are very much sought after. REEs are essential in
technologies such as smart phones, automobiles, computers and even advanced aircrafts.

As shown in the figure, carbon is both a source for energy as well as precious gems as
we know it occurs as diamond. The fertilizer industry, construction industry, these
elements which you can see from the classification in the periodic table shown in Fig.2.

IA IIA Atmophile Siderophile IIIA IVA VA VIA VIIA VIIIA

1 2
1 H Lithophile Artificial He
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2 Li Be Chalcophile B C N O F Ne
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
3 Na Mg IIIB IVB VB VIB VIIB VIIIB IB IIB Al Si P S Cl Ar
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
4 K Ca Sc Ti V Cr Mn Fe Co Ni Cu Zn Ga Ge As Se Br Kr
37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54
5 Rb Sr Y Zr Nb Mo Tc Ru Rh Pd Ag Cd In Sn Sb Te I Xe
55 56 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86
6 Cs Ba Hf Ta W Re Os Ir Pt Au Hg Tl Pb Bi Po At Rn
87 88 104 105 106 107 108 109
7 Fr Ra Rf Db Sg Bh Hs Mt
57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71
Lanthanides La Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb Dy Ho Er Tm Yb Lu
89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103
Actinides Ac Th Pa U Np Pu Am Cm Bk Cf Es Fm Md No Lr

Fig. 3: Geochemical classification of elements in the context of mineral resources.

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In summary, the periodic table helps us in understanding the fundamental chemical
affinities of elements in periods and groups that dictate the form in which various metals
and non-metals occur in nature.

The periodic table can also be correlated with geochemical classification of elements to
lihophile, siderophile, chalcophile and atmophile groups (Fig. 3). Lithophile elements
generally have the tendency to get enriched in the earth’s crust on formation in the rock
forming silicates. They do constitute many of the large ion lithophile elements like
lithium, potassium, rubidium, cesium and so on. The siderophile metals are the ones
which have the maximum affinity for iron, which is marked in the figure in blue - they
are the siderophile elements. The implication is that during the fractionation of the bulk
earth to core and mantle when most of the iron and nickel went to the core, many of
these siderophile elements like the platinum group of metals and gold also were
partitioned or fractionated into the earth’s core and that is how their availability in the
mantle was greatly reduced. And as shown in the previous figure from the periodic table

Fig. 4 Abundance of elements in relation to Si as guide to understand the quantity likely

to be available as their resources.

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you could see the chalcophile metals. are the ones which occur as the sulphide minerals
and recovered from nature in the form of their sulfides. Atmophiles are the noble gases
which we do not consider them in the present scenario. Therefore, these geochemical
classifications of elements help us in getting first-hand information about the mineral
resources, what type of minerals to expect in what kind of geological environment. This
diagram has been taken from the geochemical earth reference model database. Here the
x-axis is the abundance of elements. The atomic number are plotted from one to just
above 90 up to uranium and on the y-axis, the abundance of these elements in reference
to the power 6 atoms of silicon have been plotted. The zigzag pattern in the abundance of
these metals is a very fundamental principle that odd atomic number elements are less
abundant than the even atomic number elements and the ones which are the most
abundant elements, (the rock forming elements) are shown here. The rarest metals
ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, gold, platinum as we saw in the previous diagram are the
rarest minerals. The blue ones are the rare earth metals which occur in much less amount
compared to the other metals. The metals are plotted on log scale.

Now, as far as the mineral resources are concerned, the fundamental questions that we
ask - in what quantity we actually get them and what actually is the parameter that
control the variable quantities in which they are present? Fig.5 shows an interesting
relationship between the quantity of metals available as resources that we could exploit
(the term used will be explained later) and their abundance in the Earth’s continental
crust. The logic of taking the values of abundance in the continental crust is because of
the fact that mineral resources (so far) have been known to occur in the continental crust.
On the x-axis, we will have the log abundance on the bulk continental crust where we
see variations of about 9 order of magnitude (meaning 10 to the power of minus 8 to
nearly 10 wt %) where you could see the abundant metals like aluminium and iron
having abundance of almost is 8 percent and 5 to 6 percent in the continental crust. On
the y-axis, the quantity of these metals available as mineral resources in terms of metric
tons (1 ton is 1000 kg), are plotted here also on the log scale. We also see that they vary
almost of the in the same orders of magnitude in the quantity of these metals starting
from very scarce metal like rhenium to going up to aluminium and iron which are
available in billions of tons of such mineral such resources taken all together. They are
occurring in the earth’s crust.

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Fig. 5 Plot of quantity of metals available versus their abundance in the bulk continental
crust.

Therefore, this diagram gives us the very first insight that the total quantity of any
particular metal that is available as a resource has some kind of a direct relationship with
their abundance in the continental crust. Fi.5 depicts a vertical scale of ‘enrichment
factor’ that gives us a rough idea as to the factor by which a metal must be enriched to
result in a recoverable mineral resource. The range of variation of factor varies from 1
(no enrichment required in reference to their abundance in the crust) to about 100000
(times enrichment w.r.t. their crustal abundance).

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Fig. 6 : Enrichment facor of selected metals that gives us a rough idea as to which metals should
occur in how much quantity.

As we can see from the figure, abundant metals like aluminium and iron have enrichment
factor values which are less than 10, we can say less than 1 order of magnitude
enrichment. What does it tell us? It tells us that an abundant metal like aluminium and
iron does not only need to be very little enriched to give us its available resource which
you can exploit. And it is very scarce metal like mercury, whose crustal abundance is of
the order of 10 to the power of minus 5 in weight percent, would require almost about

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80,000 or more times enrichment so that it will be available to us in the form of a
resource.

It does give us some few more insights to the possible processes of enrichment. We shall
be discussing those different earth processes that is what we basically try to correlate
here, all the earth processes of formation of mineral deposits. We see that these scarce
metals like mercury possibly we would be needing multiple steps or multiple stages of
enrichment so as to reach to a level where we can call them a resource and the metals
compared to abundant metals like Al and Fe which could be enriched by a single stage
enrichment – other metals fall in between. They do also tell us at least at the scarce these
metals we will definitely take longer time to be available as resources in the earth.

It should be kept in mind that, when we use the word resource, it is a generalized
qualitative term representing the total amount of any particular metal or a mineral. What
actually it comprises is the mineral or the ore deposits. These are discrete entities present
that we see them in measurable quantity. They have to satisfy some quality and quantity
parameters in order to be exploited. Where actually do we find these mineral/ore
deposits? We find them in the earth’s crust or to be more specific in the upper
continental crust. Therefore, what are the crustal domains in which we get these ore
deposits? These mineral deposits of various metals (refer to the periodic table), they
occur in the crust more specifically in the upper continental crust either exposed on the
surface or even going to depths as high as 5 kilometre. Quickly we can see what are the
different crustal domains that we can expect to see such mineral deposits occurring.

You can expect them in recent or ancient sedimentary basins; they may be occurring
associated with magmatic bodies (exposed or subsurface intrusive magmatic bodies of
diverse chemistry, in present day tectonically active zones such as subduction-collision,
mid-oceanic ridges), in crustal scale faults and brittle - ductile deformation zones.
Deformation zones could be crustal scale as well as local scale deformation zones such
as shear zones, fracture zones, folded strata and so on. The sedimentary basins also could
be the marine sedimentary basins or continental fluvial and so on. We will see the whole
spectrum in the due course of discussion.

And let us try to look at some of the basic terminologies. What you mean by ‘mineral
deposits’ that we are talking about, is essentially constituting of some entity which you
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can call as an ‘ore’. We defined ore as a natural aggregate of minerals. Ore essentially is
a rock as it is a natural aggregate of minerals. And the only speciality is that in the ore,
there is the concentration of either one or more than one element (metals) above a
threshold or a background value which is called the ‘Clarke Value’ after the famous
geochemist FW Clarke. It is kind of an average concentration value in in the crustal
rocks.

(a) (b)

(d)

(c)

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 Quartz
Quartz Reef
Reef
Dolerite
Dolerite Dykes
Dykes
Aplite
Chilpi Group
Group
Pink Granitoid
Granitoid
00 200m
200m

(e) (f)

(g)

(h)

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 (j)

(i)

Fig. 7 Figures for general idea about ore, ore body, ore deposit and ore district.

Fig.7 shows some examples to bring home the concepts and terminology just discussed.
In the figure, (a) is a photograph of a typical ore from Banded Iron Formation (BIF – to
be described later) taken on an exposure. This is taken from the iron ore, this one
photographs from the Hamersley Basin in Australia where you could see the darker
bands constituting of hematite and the lighter red bands are the cryptocrystalline
ferruginous silica known as chert/jasper. We all know that the grey bands which is the
iron oxide is the material of interest whicht is the ore mineral then the part which we
would like to discard (the silica bands) is the ‘gangue’ mineral. In (b) a specimen of ore
from Malanjkhand copper deposit in central India is shown, where you could see the
sulfide minerals of copper (a yellowish patch on the right corner) in a matrix of quartz.
Here the quartz is the gangue mineral and the chalcopyrite is the ore minerals. In order
for this material to be qualify to be called as an ore, the concentration of the metal (Cu)
has to be above a certain value. Say for example, at least of a 0.45 percent of copper to
be for this material to be called as an ore in an economic sense. Fig.7 (c) is the picture of
drill core from an ore body (cylindrical core cut longitudinally) where you can clearly
see the sulphide minerals (bright yellow) occurring in conformity to the laminae of the
host sedimentary rock in two cases and as irregular elongated patches in one case. Here
also the laminae of the host sediment (could be a shale or a limestone constitute the
gangue. In (d) you can see the same with the laminae of the host sediment and ore
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minerals seems to have been mildly folded and later transgressed by veins of quartz and
sulphide minerals. These samples belong to a specific type of ore that we shall discuss
later.

Ores come from something which is an entity occurring in the association with common
rocks in the crust - an ore body. Fig. 7 (e) an example of the ore body of copper from
Malanjkhand copper mine in Central India where you see it is a rich mineralization of
copper iron sulphide (chalcopyrite – the bright yellow patches) mineralization in this ore
body. The ore body has a specific dimension - length breadth and thickness. It should
have a certain quantity of the metal for that to be feasible to be recovered by by using
different scientific methods for extraction of a recovery or this particular metal. Fig 7 (g)
is a aerial view of a mine (the Malanjkhand copper mine in MP, India) where the ore
body (as shown in (e)) is being mined and Fig.7 (f) is an example of a mine scale
geological map showing the plan view of the ore body in an area of about 2 square
kilometres. Therefore, this is an example - a typical look of a mine where an ore body is
being exploited. This is taken from the Malanjkhand mine. If we want to represent the
ore body in space we can only do it on a geological map. Therefore, it is very important
that if we want to understand the ore deposit formation processes, we do have to look at
their maps at all scales. This is a mine scale geological map where the ore body which is
basically the copper rich ore body extending for a length of almost like 1.8 to 2 kilometre
in surrounding rocks in association. They occur in association with common crustal
rocks. This is what is an example of a mine in scale geological map. If we take a
subsurface section of this ore body (Fig 7 (h)), we do see that it does extend to certain
depth. Recall that ore bodies can either be observed as exposed on the surface or
concealed below soil/rock cover. An ore body can either occur as a lone entity in any
segment of the eart’s crust or may occur in multiple numbers in a single ore deposit.
Further, an ore deposit also can be a lone occurrence in geologic terrane or there can be
many such deposits in a geologic terrane in a region. Fig. 7 (i) is a map of the Noamundi
Basin in Singhbhum Craton. In this particular basin itself we get a good number of
localities where the iron ore deposits are being mined. In addition to that, there are many
manganese deposits in close spatial association also being mined in the same basin. Fig.
7 (j) is an interesting example where there are several diamond ore bodies (being mined

16
from three circular holes made on the ground) that occur in a small area of just about a
square kilometre, in the Ekati diamond field in Canada.

There are many such examples all over the world where multiple ore bodies occur in one
geologic terrane, in which case we call them as ore district or mineral province or
mineral belt or mettallogenic provinces. There are many such examples of such kind of
mineral belt mettallogenic province - the classic examples come from the Abitibi
Greenstone Belt in Canada, Kalgoorlie Gold District, Yilgarn, Craton in West Australia,
Carlin Trend in Neveda, United States of America (where it is a very rich zone
producing gold ores) and the gold bearing Scist belts in Dharwar craton. These are some
of the examples of the mettallogenic province or mineral belts.

If we want to understand ore forming processes, fundamentally we must make careful

documentation of the features of the ore deposits, starting from nature of ores
(mineralogy, chemistry etc), the way the ore body occurs in association with the type of
rocks in the area and the broad geologic process that would have formed these rocks or
modified them in course of geologic time scales.

Definition of Terms:

• Mineral: An inorganic crystalline solid.

• Ore (geologic): A rock having one or more than one constituent mineral(s)
having one or more than one metals of interest. Further, the concentration of the
metal of interest must be above a threshold value (such as Clarke value). [For
example there are multimetal ores containing sulphide minerals of Cu, Pb and Zn;
even sometimes such ores also have trace concentrations of Au and Ag as we
shall see them in course of our discussion]

• Ore (economic): A rock that is enriched in one or more than one metals of
interest in sufficient concentrations so that they could be extracted at a profit. [As
you can make out, whether a metal could be extracted at a profit or depends on
the price of that metal in the market and the available technology to extract it.
This is the reason for which the discrimination of ‘ore’ and ‘waste’ is a pretty
dynamic one – see explanation below]

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• Ore body: It is a physically and chemically distinct entity that could be
demarcated in any geologic environment. Sometimes the ore is a distinct geologic
entity (a particular horizon in a sequence of sedimentary rocks, a distinct
magmatic body in association with several others in close spatial association,
veins of variable dimension emplaced in structurally weak planes etc.) which
could be mapped at different scales. Often, it is demarcated based only on the
concentration of the metal of interest.

• Gangue: The term is used for mineral constituents other than the ore minerals
present in an ore. They are usually removed from the ore and are sometimes
deleterious to the quality of ore. For example in a typical quartz-sulfide ore, the
quartz is the gangue which is the unwanted constituent.

• Grade: Any ore body is qualified by this quality parameter which is essentially
the content of metal(s) in an ore (as a whole consisting of the ore and gangue
minerals) expressed as mass percentage. For example, an ore of copper typically
will have a maximum metal content of 2 to 3 wt% whereas an ore of gold will be
about a few parts per million (a few mg per kg). In order that an ore (of any
metal) be feasible for recovery of the metal or mineral by available technology, it
should have a minimum value of concentration of the metal – this value is
referred as the ‘cut off grade’ (we shall see this in details later). Parts of the ore
body having concentrations below this cut off grade are labelled as ‘waste’ and
are usually dumped for the future. One important thing to remember about grade
is that, an ore body in its entire limits of length, breadth and depth, never has a
uniform concentration of the metal(s) of interest – it exhibits wide variations,
sometimes systematically (displaying zoning) and sometimes random. The ores
meeting the quality parameters are often categorized as ‘high’, ‘medium’ and
‘low’ grades. For example, if the cut off grade of copper is 0.45%, there could be
parts of the ore body having concentrations in excess of 2 wt%, some parts could
be between 1 to 2 wt% and some parts below that and above 0.45 wt%, thus
leading to such subjective categorization.

• Tonnage: The total quantity of the ore that meet the quality parameters.
Conventionally it is expressed in units of tonne (1000 kg). Ores of abundant
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 metals like Fe and Al range in millions of tonnes (for a single ore deposit or
district) and those of scarce metals just in thousands of kgs.

• Resource: A generalized qualitative term representing the sum total of

availability of any mineral / metal. Hypothetically it represents a total of what is
known to be existing and what is not yet known. We shall see a detailed
classification of mineral resources later in this course.

• Reserve: A term used to represent the quantity of ore established as certain

(geologically) to be present of a minable quality (economically - above the cut-
off grade) in any ore deposit.

• Reserve base: A term used to represent sum total of ores as reserve and also the
quantity established as certain to be present (geologically) but not economically
feasible to mine or could be termed as ‘sub-economic) that could be mined if the
technology to process the ore / extract the metal is advanced.

Suggested Text Books:

• Economic Mineral Deposits by M L Jensen and A M Bateman (Third

Edition, Originally by John Wiley and Sons)

• Ore Geology and Industrial Minerals: An Introduction by A M Evans,

(Blacwell Pub.)

• Introduction to Ore Forming Processes by Laurence Robb (Blackwell Pub.)

• Resources of the Earth: Origin, Use and Environmental Imapct by J R

Craig, D J Vaughan and B J Skinner (Prentice Hall Pub.)

• Mineral Resources, Economics and the Environment by S. E. Kesler

(Macmilan Pub)

• Ore Deposit Geology by John Ridley (Cambridge University Press)

• Understanding Mineral Deposits by K. C. Misra (Kluwer Pub)

19
 • Looking into the Earth: an introduction to Geological Geophysics by Musset
AE and Khan MA (Cambridge University Press)

• Introduction to Mineral Exploration by Moon CJ, Whateley MEG and

Evans A. (Blackwell Pub)

(The book of Laurence Robb will be sufficient for you)

20
 Module -1
Mineral Deposits in Space and Time

So far, we got an introductory overview of mineral resources is to what they are. Further
we got an idea of the control of certain fundamental parameters on the availability of the
mineral resources in terms of the quantity available and the occurrence of various
mineral resources in the earth’s crust. We know that the term resource is a qualitative
term used to represent a total possible quantity of the minerals of different metals
distributed in discovered and undiscovered deposits. We exploit only the part of the
resource with confirmed quality and quantity meeting the economic criteria.

Mineral resources actually comprise the individual mineral deposits of those metals or
minerals, and they do occur in the earth’s crust either exposed on the surface or at
different depths (as deep as 4 km). Now, let us try to get an overview of the distribution
of these mineral deposits in space and time. Space essentially means the crust or more
precisely the upper continental crust where the mineral resources of different metals and
minerals may occur.

Endogenic
Earth’s own
heat engine
Earth Processes

Exogenic
The SUN

Fig. 1 The broad classification of Earth Processes

Before we start discussing on the distribution of these mineral deposits in space, (space
means in earth’s continental crust) let us first consider the earth and its broad processes
because the domains in which these mineral resources are enriched to give us the mineral
deposits are a result of the earth processes operating at different scales.
These processes can be fundamentally classified into (i) endogenic and (ii) exogenic
processes. These processes give rise to mineral deposit formation. It is generally
applicable to the formation of different types of rocks in the crust. Since mineral deposits
are an integral part of the crust and they occur in association with the common crustal
rocks, they are also results of the broad processes operating inside the earth. When you
consider earth processes, the earth is like a big machine or we call it as the earth system
where the different components of the system operate in a well-orchestrated manner
driven by energy. The energy has to come from somewhere. So, we have divided the
processes into two broad categories based on the source of the energy - that is the
endogenic and the exogenic processes. Before coming to understand the endogenic
process, let us first let us recall that there are different components of this earth system –
the crust, mantle and the core (you are already aware of the internal structure of the Earth
from your elementary Geology course). The average crustal depth is about 33 kilometers,
the Mantle extends to 2900 km and the core to the centre. Whatever phenomenon takes
place in the crust, or more appropriately the lithosphere (crust + the upper mantle
together about 100 km average thickness rigid hemispherical shells) such as volcanism,
magmatism, metamorphism, deformation and tectonism on plate boundaries as well as
interiors, require energy – the heat energy that is converted to work. This heat energy
mainly comes from the core that drives the convection in the silicate mantle that is
sustaining the global tectonic activities. Essentially because of the difference in the
thermal conductivity between the core and the mantle, additional heat energy always
keeps accumulating on the core - mantle boundary and that periodically is given off in
the form of thermal plumes which are essentially pockets of heat energy rising through
the mantle that. melts the crust in different continental as well as oceanic domains.

You may refer to standard text of Physical Geology, where diagrams on present day plate
tectonics - distribution of plates, their boundaries, magmatic activities associated with
convergent and divergent boundaries, zones of continental collision, rifting of the
oceanic and continental lithosphere etc are illustrated.

The present day operative global tectonic processes (for which energy is provided by the
earth’s own heat engine) explains the distribution of various magmatic (primary) rocks in
broadly different geologic domains. As stated earlier, one of the important domains of
occurrence of mineral resources are the magmatic rocks. It is quite logical to conclude
that plate-tectonic type ‘endogenic’ process must be contributing to formation of mineral
resources. Metamorphic rocks also do form in domains of active tectonism (like the
continental collision zones) and also in domains where the necessary thermal energy is
available and are by default, endogenic. Some types of mineral resources are also
associated with metamorphic rocks; thus, the role of ‘endogenic’ processes is logically
important.

The second category of processes are the exogenic process for which the energy is
essentially provided by the sun. Exogenic process essentially means the weathering
process, erosion, transportation, and deposition in sedimentary basins, evaporation and
so on. These kinds of processes do operate on the surface of the earth and result in
formation of a wide variety of mineral deposits as we shall see them in due course. These
surface processes certainly did operate in the geologic past and thus mineral resources
resulting from such processes also are older in age, sometimes with their features
modified to variable degrees.

But as you could see in the diagram that the endogenic process and the exogenic process
could possibly be correlated with some relationship existing between them, because the
weathering and erosion processes, denudation processes largely depend on the rate at
which any part of the continental mass is rising as a result of tectonic activities or
isostatic adjustment.

The scale of the operation of the two broad processes have to be understood if we want
to explain the distributional peculiarities or the distributional characteristics of these
mineral resources. While global tectonic processes operate in much larger dimension
(rifting of ocean floor, continental collision zones, subduction zones are in scales of
hundreds or thousands of km) the occurrence of any ore deposit is observed in much
smaller spatial domains, thus indicating some local scale geological environments to be
essential. Exogenic processes also could be visualized from this perspective.
 Insert figure for Iron

If we want to understand ore deposit formation, it is very essential for us to have the
concept of space; space means essentially we mean that the earth; that the continents the
surface of the earth as we see and then we could just look at the distribution. So, here we
have the globe the physical map of the earth with the present day distribution of the land
and sea, we all know that the earth is covered 70 percent by water by the oceans and
about 30 percent are available as continental mass for us.

So, let us try to first look at the distributional peculiarities of metals just to bring out the
fact that the distribution of different mineral resources is not very uniform all across the
continents or all across the surface of the earth that is all exposed to us. For example,
take the case iron which is available in abundant quantity and is one of the important
metallic resources for steel and the infrastructure industry.

Fig.2 Important Iron Ore localities of the world. The asterisk marks are located (roughly)
as follows: the one in the middle of North America is the Lake Superior Iron Ore District,
the one in the NE tip is the Labrador Trough, the one in the NW corner is the Rapitan
basin, the one in S. America is Quadrilatero Ferifero in Brazil, wester margin in south of
Africa is the Damara Belt, Namibia and the one further down is the Barberton Mountain
Range, the one in Eastern Russia is the Krivoy Rog Iron deposits in Ukraine, the three
points in India from SW to NE are the Iron deposits in Dharwar craton, Bastar Craton and
Singhbhum craton. The point on Western Australia is the Hamersley Basin.

The prime contention is that mineral deposits are distributed non-uniformly in space.
This is illustrated through a series of figures (from Fig. 2 to 6) with respect to important
metals such as Iron, Copper, Lead, Zn, Gold, Uranium and chromium. The picture
remains the same for any other metal that you may consider. The purpose of showing
this is that, the total quantity of iron ores at present available to us in billions of tons in
quantity, is distributed in only a few localities across the continents. They are the ones
which give the maximum or major bulk of the production of iron in the world and
sometimes being present in very huge quantity which we call them a super large
deposit.
 1 2 3
2 4 5
46 5

3
1 6
7

Fig.3 Tentative locations of Copper (red stars) and Pb&Zn (black stars). Copper: 1 –
Porphyry copper deposits in the Chilean Andes, 2 – Noranda, Quebec, Canada, 3 –
Zambian Copper Belt, 4 – Cyprus copper deposit, 5 – Copper deposits in the Singbhum
Shear Zone, 6 – Malanjkhand Copper Deposit, Central India (there are some more not
shown here). Pb & Zn : 1 – Sullivan, Canada, 2 – Mississippi Valley Pb-Zn deposits, USA, 3
– Ramelsberg Deposit, Germany, 4 – Pb-Zn deposits in the Aravalli Fold Belt, India, 5 –
Kuroko Pb-Zn deposit, Japan, 6 – Mt Isa Deposit, Queensland, Australia, 7 – Broken Hill
Deposit, S. Australia

Fig. 3 shows tentative location of selected deposits of Copper and Pb & Zn across all
continents. We shall discuss about their types and characteristics later. There are many
more deposits - these are the significant ones in the world which produce the maximum
amount of the metals. Therefore, here again, the intention is very clear - just to show that
the distribution of these deposits is so very non uniform across the continents in the
world.

Fig. 4 shows the distribution of gold deposits of the world. Fig.5 and 6 are locations of
Uranium and chromium deposits.
 2
1
3 6

4 7
5

Fig. 4 Tentative locations of gold deposits of the world. 1- Carlin Gold deposits, Nevada,
US, 2 – Gold deposits of Abitibi belt, Canada, 3 – Ashanti Belt, Ghana, 4 – Witwatersrand,
S Africa, 5 – Gold deposit in Pretoria, S. Africa, 6 – Gold deposits of Dharwar Craton,
India, 7 – Gold deposits in Yilgarn Craton in W. Australia.

2
3 4
5

Fig. 5 Tentative locations of Uranium deposits of the world. 1 – Athabasca Basin, Canada, 2
– Jacobina deposit, Brazil, 3 – Witwatersrand, S. Africa, 4 – Alligator River deposit, N.
Australia and 5 – Olympic Dam deposit, S. Australia.
 2
1 4
7

3 6
5

Fig. 6 Tentative location of Chromium deposits of the world. 1 – Stillwater Complex,

Montana, US, 2 – Skeargaard Complex, Greenland, 3 – Campo Formoso, Brazil, 5 –
Bushveld Complex, S. Africa, 6 – Great Dyke Complex, Zimbabwe, 7 – Sukinda Valley
Chromite Deposit, Odisha, India

We can always look at and visualize the distributional peculiarities of metals. So, these
constitute the major resources of the metals where they produce bulk of the uranium of
the world. We will be looking at the mineral resources in a greater detail when we come
to the individual deposit types.

Fig. 7 Percentage of quantity of gold in different continents.

So, what we actually are observing here in Fig. 7 is just one such example. The
percentage of gold total in ounce by region. We can look at such example or many more
of such metals which are on great demand or are very useful for our industry of very high
economic value. A tiny Australian mainland is contributing about 12 percent of the total
gold of the world, whereas the whole of Asia is only about 17 percent, Africa is 17
percent and the whole of Europe is contributing only 2 percent. North America is 34
percent and South America is 17 percent. It may be noted that these values of
contribution of the metal is also not distributed uniformly, rather come from some
selected areas. So, the thing which is pretty observable here is that the mineral deposits
do have a very gross non-uniformity in their occurrences across the continents. And we
will have to see how they can be rationalized, how they can be understood in the context
of the broader earth process as we have defined as the exogenic and the endogenic
processes.

Fig. 8 Relationship of mineral deposit occurrence and area of countries of the

world.

Fig. 8 is again one which was plotted where the total number of the mineral commodities
that is produced in any of the country against the geographical area of the country. A
broad band which is defined which would look like the total mineral endowment is
somewhat in proportion to the total geographical area of that country. Some of the
countries would look as if their mineral endowment is far less than what would be
expected from the geographical area. and some of the countries will be producing a lot
more number of mineral commodities then what would be expected from the total
geographical area.

Here, the situation is that it is just not the geographical area, it is definitely something
more fundamental that controls occurrence of mineral deposits and the total quantity is
not in proportion to area of any continent. As we will also see gradually that identical
geology of any two regions or terranes does not guarantee equal mineral endowment.
And in the present-day context, mineral deposit occurrences seem to be controlled by
global tectonic processes and diverse tectonic domain which we shall be seeing.

So, now, let us try to rationalize the occurrences, distributional peculiarities of the
mineral resources in relation to the broad earth processes - in the broadest sense could be
visualized through the present-day global tectonics process.

Fig. 9 The tectonic plates and the different types of plate boundaries

We can correlate the occurrence of mineral deposits and present-day active plate
margins. (1) The Chilean Andes, representing the continental arc due to subduction of
the Nazca oceanic plate and the S. American continental plate, has the maximum
frequency of occurrence of copper deposits and the major bulk of copper is produced
from Chile. (2) The circum Pacific ‘ring of fire’ representing subduction of the Pacific
plate (Papua New Guinea, Indonesian and Philippine Arcs, Japanese Island Arc,
Aleutian Trench and so on), has a large number of copper-gold-silver deposits, (3) the
Western Amaerican Cordillera (once active continental arc due to subduction of the
Faralon plate and the N. American plate) is the locality having large copper and
molybdenum deposits. Besides, the world ocean ridge system measuring in length of
more than 55000 km, is the site of active mineralization.

Fig. 10 (left) Chimney-like structures on mid-oceanic ridges constituting of metal

sulfide minerals, (right) Black smokers (hot water with fine suspended sulfide
minerals) observed on mid-oceanic ridges (you can search in Google to get more
images)

Fig. 10 are interesting features of active mineralization of sulfide minerals of Cu, Pb, Zn
with other metals in minor concentration observed at many sites on the world ocean
ridge systems (East Pacific Rise, Mid Atlantic Ridge, Indian Ocean Ridge and many
such other ridges).

These above features in relation to present-day global tectonics explain mineralization at

recent times and/or present-day. However, the majority of mineral deposits are in the
continental interiors in old cratonic blocs. The question that arises is whether those
deposits also resulted by similar processes. Hopefully, we shall be able to attempt an
answer to this question at the end of this course.
We can make a broad correlation with the endogenic process which basically is manifest
in the global tectonics and magmatic activity within the continents or magmatic activity
on continental margins. We also can draw some idea about the exogenic processes – for
example, the major river system of the world that are transporting huge load of sediments
and depositing them in ocean and intracontinental basins; processes operating in present-
day deserts and slow operating weathering and soil formation. All exogenic processes we
observe today have been operating throughout geologic past whose imprints are
preserved in the rock record. All of them are potential ore forming processes as we shall
see them.

If you look at the diagram below, you can easily visualize that areas where the
weathering and erosion processes is expected to be far greater in extent or faster, are the
areas where we have a mountain chains like the Himalayan mountain chain, and we
have the erosion of the Himalayan mountain chain by the river system and deposition of
the sediments in huge quantity in the Bengal Fan. There are many such other major river
systems in the world resulting in diverse features, many of which are sites of mineral
deposit formation as we shall see later.

Fig. 11 Schematic sketch on occurrence of mineral deposits in the continental interior in

light of the plate tectonic processes.

Fig.11 gives a bit of idea about occurrence of mineral deposits of different metals and
types in the continents that you could correlate with Fig.9. In addition to processes in the
plate margin, within the interior of the plates (in the continental lithosphere) processes of
magmatism also takes place that give rise to mineralization. We can have ultramafic
magmatism giving rise to chromium nickel deposit in the interior of the plate. The figure
also shows something which is very similar to what is happening in the Alpine
Himalayan mountain chain where there is intense tectonic activity, lots of extra heat
being generated through the frictional force in the thrusting processes of the rock masses
and small quantities of felsic mails being generated. There are chances of getting some
uranium or thorium type of deposit which is indicated in the figure. The lithophile
elements which get enriched in crustal rocks. And also in the mid-continent, we have tin
tungsten deposits associated with felsic magmatic rocks.

Fig. 12 Schematic sketch on occurrence of mineral deposits in the interior of the oceanic
lithosphere in light of the plate tectonic processes.

Fig. 12 is a situation which is corresponding to the mid oceanic ridges where the
structure is pretty much complicated with faults and fracture network and circulation of
the seawater and giving rise to deposits of copper, lead, zinc. We will see what exactly
they are, what genetic category they belong to in due course of the course. The mafic
bodies which are emplaced at greater depths also give rise to chromium nickel and
platinum group of metals.

So, to sum up we do have a distributional peculiarity of these resources of different

metals and minerals and that distributional peculiarities could be very well explained
based on the endogenic and exogenic processes that are operating in the interior and
surface of the earth, respectively.
 Module - 1
Mineral Deposits in Space and Time (Contd.)

We looked at the distribution keeping a reference of the physical map of the world
where we see the distribution of the land and sea; and in the continent, we also see the
young mountain chains and the older rocks which are in the shield areas, that gave us a
framework on the spatial distribution of the mineral deposits.

Quaternary
2.5 Ma
Neogene
23 Ma
Paleogene
65 Ma
Mesozoic
230 Ma
Paleozoic
540 Ma

Proterozoic

~89% 2500 Ma

Archean

4000 Ma

Fig. 1 The simplified geologic time scale

In continuation to that, let us look at the temporal distribution of mineral deposits

because, to understand the mineral deposit formation we need to understand the temporal
evolution of the earth’s crust. We see diverse types of deposits and these deposits did
form in the geological past. Just for your reference (Fig.1) with a very simplified column
here shows the time range from the beginning if we take it from 4000 million years to the
present day in the quaternary. If we take the present-day scenario, as we saw as to what
is happening in the mid oceanic ridges, the mineral deposit formation is almost like
present day phenomenon. There is formation of metal sulfide (mostly of Cu, Pb, Zn with
some Au, Ag as well) deposits at many localities on the ocean ridge system.
Some of the important deposits which are associated with the present-day destructive
plate margins, their age ranges are also pretty young within just a few tens of million
years or even less than one million years of time.

And then this 4500-million-year-old earth where we get rock records up to 4000 million
years - about 89 percent of this geological history basically belongs to the era which we
broadly refer to as the Precambrian, up to roughly about 540 million years. We do also
get ore deposits which range in ages as low as even 4000 million years. The oldest iron
ore deposit comes from the Isua complex in Greenland which is about 4000 million
years. The deposits of almost all the metals, iron, the base metal copper lead and zinc,
gold, chromium and uranium, all these deposits we see that are present in the continental
interiors associated with older rocks which are also very old.

In most of the cases the age relationship or the exact timing of mineralization of these
metals or the minerals come rather more indirectly. In the Precambrian, we mostly
depend on radiometric age determination on the associated country rocks and host rocks
which give us the idea about the timing of the formation of these mineral deposits. We
also do have the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic rock records in which also we do
get mineralizations. But as you will see just in a short while, the majority of the
continents in terms of the proportion of the area of the continent available, we do have a
sizable proportion covered by Precambrian rocks. In Fig.2, areas in light and dark gray
represent Precambrian rock cover. If we overlay the Figure with locations of all the
known mineral deposits of the world (some of which have been shown on the world map
before), you can vary well see that the Precambrian rocks host a considerable proportion
of the mineral resources.
Fig.2 The world map with continents with rock covers of Precambrian and Phanerozoic
crusts.

Almost the entire Iron resources come from Precambrian shield areas (Superior
Province, North America; Quadrilatero Feriferro, Brazil; Barberton Mountain Range,
South Africa, Dharwar Craton, Singbhum Craton and Bastar Craton in India, Hamersley
Basin, Western Australia and Krivoy Rog basin in Ukrane). Similarly, a major
proportion of chromium resources also are associated with Precambrian rocks. Metals
whose deposits in the Phanerozoic outnumber those in Precambrian are Sn, W, Mo,
REEs, semimetals, Hg. There is virtually no Aluminum deposit in older rocks. We shall
attempt to rationalize such disparities in temporal distribution of mineral deposits.

In the present-day context, plate tectonics as a unified hypothesis explains formation of

rocks and also associated mineral deposits at diverse localities. When we see a mineral
deposit which formed in the distant geological past, as old as 4000 million years, the
basic question that comes to our mind is that ‘can they also be explained as resulting
from similar kind of tectonism as the present day operative plate tectonic processes or we
need to explain them in some different way? There are some old ore deposits which
share some common characteristics with their younger analogs, in some other cases
younger analogs are simply not observed and in yet some other cases, there is no older
analogs of deposits that formed in the recent past or present-day environments. Overall,
this makes application of the ‘law of unformitarianism’ difficult in case of ore deposits.
It is worth pointing out a fact that the ore deposits occurring in any part in the earth’s
crust is an integral part of the rock forming process or we say that every ‘ore deposit is a
characteristic part of a particular type of environment in the crust’. What we mean
by this is, every part of the continental crust can be thought of as belonging to a
particular environment (with well-defined physical and chemical parameters), this
environment could be different in different domains. And also, one of the important facts
and a problem is that the ore deposits sometimes cannot retain the original
characteristics, being subjected to deformation metamorphism along with the rocks that
they occur in the older terrains. So, it sometimes becomes very difficult to compare them
and try to find out the similarity or dissimilarity in their characteristics with the ore
deposits which have been forming in only very recent times within the time range of a
few million years from now.

So, these are one of the very important challenges that is faced by ore geologists in
general, but we shall try to see how well or how good we will be able to correlate them
and where or what situations we do fail. And then, because we visualize that there exists
a parallelism between the evolution of the continental crust or the lithosphere as a whole,
in time and the different types of mineral deposits that formed and evolved.

Therefore, if we go by the principles of uniformitarianism which tells us that the

‘present is the key to the past’, then we would expect that ore deposits that we are
finding today also would have formed in the distant geologic past or vice versa, that the
deposits which formed in the distant geologic past would also be forming in the present-
day earth processes. We will see how correct this statement is - where we agree on them
or where we are not able to agree to such situations which would be constituting our
knowledge on the ore deposits.

So, one thing is very clear that you could see the proportion of the Phanerozoic crust
which is very small. For example, the regions in which the Western American cordillera,
the Japanese island arc and the Alpine Himalayan Mountain chain. So, all these are
young, they constitute the areas where younger rocks are exposed. And the rest of the
areas where are the shield areas where there are old cratonic blocks surrounded by the
old mobile belts are exposed.
Fig.3 Meyer’s spectrum of temporal distribution of different genetic types of selected
metals.

Fig.3 is popularly known as the Meyer’s spectrum (after the Scientist named Charles
Meyer, who compiled this table in 1988 published in the Annual Review of Earth and
Planetary Sciences). In the Meyer’s spectrum here, the deposits of some selected metals
chromium, nickel, titanium, iron, copper, zinc, lead, silver, gold, uranium, tin, tungsten
and molybdenum, depending on whatever data were available are shown. This diagram
itself possibly was prepared sometime in the mid-eighties (last century), after which
there has been quite a bit of development in the field of geology, there are many new
deposit types which have come into existence.
Such kind of a diagram can only be drawn if near accurate data are available on the
quantity in which they are present and have been somehow estimated. Only a few
examples will be taken here and then try to make the point which are intended to be
explained or highlighted.

The case of Iron: Iron occurs in the following genetic types of deposits – (i) the banded
iron formations (BIF) (see the Glossary of Mineral Deposits for a brief idea about them)
in ancient (late-Archean to mid Proterozoic – roughly from ~4000 to 900 million years)
sedimentary basins (as discussed before); (ii) magmatic Iron ore deposits (in gabbro-
anorthosite suites in mafic/ultramafic complexes as well as in alkaline magmatic bodies
(Kiruna deposit in Sweden); (iii) the Iron stones. The first type constitutes the major Iron
resource of the world while the second type is insignificant, the third type not being
considered at all as a resource of Iron. The interesting thing to note about Iron is a
significant restriction of occurrence of the BIF in the Precambrian from 4000 Ma to 900
Ma with the period from 2500 – 2000 Ma being the most productive. Further, it is also
intriguing to note that the BIF never formed later than 900 Ma, indicating that the
favorable environment of their formation never reappeared after that time (a matter that
will be discussed later). The Iron deposits of magmatic origin are also restricted to the
mid-Proterozoic (around 1500 Ma) while the Ironstones formed in the Phanerozoic time.

The case of Copper: As stated before, copper is an interesting metal forming a lot more
diverse types of rocks in diverse geologic environments and thus has many genetic types
such as (i) Cu-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits (VMS) associated with sea-
floor basalts in divergent tectonic settings; (ii) porphyry-type copper deposits associated
with felsic magma in continental arc type settings (West American Cordillera, Chilean
Andes and some in circum-Pacific region) as well as in continental interiors, (iii) as
stratiform sedimentary copper deposits. While these three deposits constitute the bulk of
resources of copper, other subordinate types are the ones associated with mafic layered
complexes and in some alkali-basaltic volcanics. While the copper-rich VMS have
formed across all geologic time periods (as discussed, they are also forming on present-
day ocean-floor rift systems in the form of sulfide chimneys), the porphyry-type deposits
have been forming mostly in the post-Mesozoic time. Some deposits of copper
associated with felsic magmatic rocks occurring in continental interior (quite different in
characteristics compared to the porphyry-type ones) as well as the ones in alkali-mafic
volcancics are also restricted to mid-Proterozoic period. The stratiform clastic are a little
restricted in the time range almost like from Proterozoic to about late Mesozoic, but
actually we do sometimes see that there is a peak or the time period in which such type
of deposits formed in much larger quantities compared to what they formed in other time
periods.

The case of Pb & Zn: Zinc more or less follow the same feature as copper, being of
close geochemical affinity and form VMS and occur in deposits of all ages. There are
VMS which are Pb-rich and as is quite clear from the diagram, such deposits are absent
in Precambrain rocks and are essentially Phanerozoic. Characteristically, one can see that
Pb deposits are no older than about 1800 Ma and deposits such as the Mississippi valley
type (MVT) that are also associated with sedimentary strata, formed in the Phanerozoic.

The case of Uranium: Uranium deposits are also quite diverse – (i) the quartz pebble
conglomerate (QPC) deposits (referred to as placer deposits in the figure – the term
‘placer’ will be explained later), (ii) unconformity hosted U-deposits, (iii) Uranium in
clastic sediments (mostly in sandstones) referred to as ‘tabular’ deposits, (iv) ‘Roll-front’
type U-deposits again in sediments, (v) Vein-type U deposits associated with felsic
magmatism including pegmatites and also some in black shales and K-Fe volcanics. Out
of all these, the QPC, the unconformity associated ones are the richest and most prolific
deposits constituting the resources of uranium. Interestingly, the QPC deposits are also
very restricted to early-Proterozoic almost coinciding with the time of prolific formation
of BIF (the point will be discussed shortly). They also never formed later in the geologic
time. The unconformity associated deposits started to appear after mid-Proterozoic while
the ‘roll-front’ deposits are Phanerozoic.

The case of Gold: Gold forms a number of genetic deposit types such as the (i) QPC (in
fact they occur together in one large ore province in South Africa, about which we shall
discuss in some details), (ii) lode-type gold deposits in greenstone rocks, (iii) volcano
associated epithermal deposits, (iv) porphyry-type associated with felsic magmatism and
(v) also as VMS (many VMS deposits of Cu, Pb, Zn do contain variable amounts of
gold). As expected the porphyry-type and the volcano associated epithermal deposits are
young, the lode type and the QPC formed in the Precambrian.
The case of Sn W and Mo: It is quite striking to note that deposits of these metals,
which are restricted to felsic magmatic rocks (diverse situations as skarns, veins,
porphyry-type etc which will be discussed in due course), are essentially essentially
Phanerozoic (post-Mesozoic) in age (with rare exceptions).

Salient points of the Temporal Spectrum and Implications

First of all, let us believe the fact that ore deposits of metals of diverse geochemical
affinity form in the crust as a result of interaction of the lithosphere-hydrosphere-
atmosphere that has been continuous over the geologic past. The temporal spectrum
clearly tells us that there are some metals (like Fe and U) whose deposit type (genetic)
evolved in time. While in case of Fe, the BIF are the only genetic type that gives us the
bulk of its resources and later genetic type (such as ironstones) are negligible, deposit
types of Uranium other than QPC also contribute to its resources. This is just a matter of
the two metals, one being abundant and the other being scarce. In both cases, these
deposits never formed in the later geologic time. We need to explain this apparent
irreversibility. First, let us look at some fundamental aspect such as the very basic
chemistry of these two metals. Fe has two oxidation states (+2 and +3) and U has also
two oxidation states (+4 and +6). While Fe is soluble in the +2-oxidation state (Fe2+), U
is soluble in +6 state, implying that if the environment is reducing, it would favor
solubility of Fe while U remains insoluble. To begin with, during the Archean, the
earth’s atmosphere was reducing with very low concentration (partial pressure) of
oxygen and far higher concentrations of CO2, and sulfurous gases emanated through
extensive volcanic degassing. Under such situations, the hydrosphere (the world ocean
and surface water) could hold substantial amount of dissolved Fe. Towards the early-
Proterozoic time there was gradual increase of oxygen level of the atmosphere with
proliferation of photosynthetic plants. Such a rise in the partial pressure of oxygen in the
atmosphere/hydrosphere system caused massive deposition of the dissolved Fe in the
world ocean (details could be seen later) in the form of BIF. This explains their
occurrence in late-Archean / early-Proterozoic basins of the world and restriction to the
time period as shown in the figure. This ‘early oxygen deficient and later rise of oxygen
level in the atmosphere’ also explains the restriction of QPC to early / mid Proterozoic.
Under the oxygen deficient condition, U was in its insoluble U+4 state (mineral uraninite
UO2) and in the erosion transportation process, was carried as detrital U-mineral.
Deposition of these detrital U-mineral gave rise to the QPC deposits (will be clear when
we study the mechanical concentration process). With rise in oxygen level, U started to
dissolve in water and transported and thus we get the other types (fluid deposited) in later
geological periods. This mechanism also then clearly explains why these deposits (BIF
and QPC) never formed in later geological periods.

Metals like S, W and Mo formed their deposits quite late. A plausible explanation can be
obtained from Fig. 6 (Part-1) where enrichment factor of metals were shown. It is clear
that these metals, with a very high enrichment factor, would need enrichment in multiple
phases in the rock forming cycles to attain concentrations to give economic ores and
therefore would take longer time to form their deposits (as compared to abundant
metals). It is again quite obvious that while such an explanation is acceptable for these
metals, it fails in case of metals like Au and U which are equally scarce but have been
forming deposits from the early Precambrian time. Further, a metal like Al, being the
most second most abundant element in the crust, have deposits which formed only in the
Quaternary (not shown in the Figure) and no old deposits of Al is known. We have to
look for a suitable explanation.

Let us look at Fig.4 where the quantity of some selected metals available for exploitation
are plotted against their abundance in the upper continental crust. Since most deposit
formation is dominantly in the upper continental crust and the upper continental crust is
the repository of all the metals, it would give us some more insights to the controlling
factors. What we observe is that, instead of the metals falling on a single linear trend,
here we see that the metals fall on distinctly different linear trends. The data could be
fitted convincingly with four linear trends with near similar slopes. We consider the line
marked AA’ as a reference line with a number of metals, lines BB’ and CC’ are below
the reference line and DD’ is above. If we presume that the metals falling on AA’ have
their quantities in accordance with their upper crustal abundance, metals falling on BB’
and CC’ have lower quantities than what would be expected based on their upper crustal
abundance. Metals on DD’ have higher quantities than what would be expected from
their crustal abundance. Let us try to see as to why this could be so. We know that rocks
once formed in the crust are subjected to destruction by many processes and the rate of
destruction of rocks depend largely on the tectonic domain in which they from. For
example, rocks in continental collision zones, island and continental arcs etc whereas,
rocks in continental interiors occurring at depths will

Fig.4 Plot of quantity of metals available for exploitation (Reserve Base) versus
abundance in upper continental crust of selected metals. Both are on log scale.

survive such destructions. Since ore deposits form in all geologic environments, they will
also be destroyed once formed. However, their rates of destruction will vary. Some
people came up with the idea of ‘preservation potential’ and ‘half-life’ for survival of ore
deposits that formed in widely varying geologic environments. On this premise, the
reference line AA’ would indicate metals having a standard half-life and preservation
potential and metals on CC’ and DD’ have successively lower preservation potentials.
Metals on DD’ have the highest preservation potential and thus are available in greater
quantities. So, this diagram is very informative in that way that whatever quantity of the
mineral resources that we have we are left with are basically after they survive the
earth’s own cannibalistic recycling process. A few examples could be picked up. Take
the case of Th whose deposits form in ‘beach’ environments where they are rate of
destruction is fast and thus we see it falling on DD’. Deposits of Cr occur in magmatic
complexes in continental interior where they have a very high preservation potential and
long half life. Other metals are all intermediate. This gives us a first-hand information
that we possibly could have got much larger quantities of metals in form of deposits, had
there been no destruction of them. Second, the abundance in the upper continental crust
can be thought of as ‘first order control’ on the quantity of metals available for
exploitation.
 Module – 1 (continued)
Mineral Deposits in Time, Attributes of Mineral Deposits and Theories of Mineral
Deposits

In the previous section, we tried to rationalize the temporal distribution of mineral

deposits and in that we discussed the spectrum of different mineral deposit types. They
are basically different genetic types formed in different time periods.

Here we are going to discuss about the attributes of the mineral deposits and try to give a
general framework based on which several theories of ore deposit formation are based.
As this is a first level course, we do not have much scope to delve much deeper into the
subject of what we call as ‘ore genesis’ that deal with the origin and evolution of ore
deposits. We only look in a very brief and conceptual manner without getting much into
the details of it.

So, let us first try to see the attributes of these mineral deposits as to what they are. First
thing which might sound a little strange - ‘ore deposits are accidental in their
occurrence’ in the crust. Why accidental? Because in the previous section we saw and we
also were quite convinced that, the quantity of any metal present in it is deposit is not
actually in accordance with the equivalence or the similarity in the different geological
terranes. Across the continents of the world, if we get one deposit in a particular type of
terrane, say a granitic terrane in any continent, we get a deposit of say molybdenum, but
that same situation in another continent to a similar granitic terrain we may not get that
deposit of molybdenum. A very simple way to reconcile it is that the deposit formation
definitely requires certain process or a combination of processes to have operated in a
proper sequence and optimum level. We have not been able to very precisely
quantitatively understand these processes to put them in a deterministic manner. Even
though, we definitely attempt to make this science as exact as it be, but as it stands today,
we are far from it.

So, there is an element of chance, that is the reason why we sometime use some
probabilistic or stochastic model to predict the formation of these deposits. Although in
the first place, it would look all ‘mad’, there is a ‘method in the madness’ which we need
to understand. So, when the mineral deposit formation looks like random, yet there is a
method in that madness, which when worked out tells us exciting stories about evolution
of the lithosphere hydrosphere and atmosphere that are instrumental in formation of ore
deposits.

We have just seen the older iron deposits, uranium deposits occurring in Precambrain
terranes and certain other deposits much later in the geologic history. We need to
rationalize them. When we look at the records of crustal evolution since the earliest time
till date and see the pattern of evolution of genetic types of deposits of many metals, we
visualize a parallelism between them. Ore deposits are distinct geological,

Conc. Profile of copper

Common
crustal rock /
k

Ore body
of copper

Fig. 1 Simple sketch to visulaize the ore body as a distinct geological and chemical entity
in the crust

physical and chemical entities in the crust and can also be called as anomalies in the
crust. What is meant by that? An ore deposit essentially has something which is called an
ore body which is an entity having a definite shape, size, length, breadth and thickness in
association with the crustal rocks.

Let us think of a situation where there is normal crustal rock. Now, in this normal crustal
rock, let us say that there is an ore body as ideally shown in Fig.1. The ore body could
be of any possible shape and size (we will look at them more closely when we look at the
morphologies of different ore deposits). Suppose this is an ore body as we have defined
that is present in a rock (may it be a sedimentary / magmatic or metamorphic). Let us say
that this is an ore body of copper containing Cu-ore minerals. So, what is basically meant
by an anomaly? This definitely is a distinct physical entity which is identifiable in a
domain with respect to the surrounding rock which basically we call as the country rock.
So, what is meant by an anomaly is that the concentration of this particular metal such as
copper has a value which is a much higher than the threshold value or a Clarke value (of
say 5 ppm) present in the country rock. If you sample the area in close intervals (has to
be smaller than the width of the ore body) on a line as shown in the figure, and analyse
the samples, you will get a concentration profile as shown in the figure in red. There are
diverse situations of such ore-body – country rock relationship that will see in details
later. There could be lots of questions that could be raised on relationship of ore body
and country rocks such as their relative timing, the processes involved in formation of
the ore body and we shall see whether we could have definitive answers.

Whatever may be the process, we can visualize that formation of such an ore body (an
entity having concentration of any metal much higher than the Clarke value) is a result of
some mechanism of enrichment in nature – we shall not be very wrong if we say that it is
the earth’s own mechanism of ‘beneficiation’. You are quite familiar with this term
‘beneficiation’ (explained in basic High School Chemistry texts) and hopefully will be
able to appreciate. One of the process of beneficiation which you all would have studied
is the froth flotation process. In this froth flotation process suppose you have an ore, of a
metal say copper where, the percentage is 1.5 weight percent. This particular ore
containing 1.5 weight percent of copper is not suitable for extraction of the metal by a
pyrometallurgical process such as smelting and say that its copper concentration should
be at least 25 wt%. Now, then we need to have a process for increasing the metal content
of this ore from 1.5 to 25 weight percent (essentially by partially removing the unwanted
gangue minerals). We all know the process beginning with crushing in a primary,
secondary, tertiary crusher, make a slurry and then make it to interact with a froth in
which the mineral of interest could be selectively separated out using specific surface
properties. This is a process where we are designing a processing plant. It is manmade
artificial process of beneficiation. Similarly, the process of beneficiation is carried out by
nature - essentially the process is actually enrichment of a rock to ore. The way we have
defined the rock, where the concentration of the metal is somewhere at the threshold
Clarke value, and then this particular rock has to be enriched to form the ore. That is
what is our enrichment process so that is why we say that, this process which can be
obtained by a single step of enrichment or could be a multiple stage of enrichment. That
is all done by the earth’s own beneficiation process, whatever endogenic or exogenic
processes that we have discussed have actually come into play to convert a normal rock
to a to an ore and that normal rock could be anywhere - could be there in the mantle,
could be there in the lower crust, could be there in the upper crust, could be there on the
surface. As these diverse processes could be classified, so are the resultant ore deposits.
All these processes, either one of them or more than one of them in combination could
have acted to convert a particular rock to an ore. The elementary earth processes –
magmatism, erosion and sedimentation, metamorphism and some specialized fluid-
assisted process (quite diverse and intricate) are responsible in formation of ore deposits.
Magmatism is efficient in certain circumstances to convert from a rock to ore; that
means, through a melting process. We shall briefly discuss how these elementary and
fluid assisted processes act on rocks in the lithosphere and bring about enrichment in
later sections.

Ore deposits are distributed non-uniformly in space and time explainable on the
changing nature of interaction of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, preservation
of rocks of different geological time in the crust. Ore deposit formation can be visualized
as a complex process of interaction of the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. that
they cannot be kept isolated from each other in at least in relation to the formation of ore
deposits of different types. And we also have just seen that, whatever quantity of the
metals that we have as the total endowment of the continental crust, with respect to, any
metal (abundant metal or scarce metal), the amount that is left after any kind of a self-
destruction process or what we get is actually the ones which are preserved.

And there are some first order controls on their occurrence, the very chemical affinity of
the metal, the form of the deposit, their abundance in the bulk earth, mantle, bulk crust,
upper crust. Mineralogy is also a fundamental controlling factor based on geochemical
affinity. This we discussed in the very first introductory section that, the total quantity of
the metal that is available to us is essentially controlled by the crustal abundance. What
we see something is present in the crust today or in any ore body, we can always go back
and see what is the ultimate source. Although, we can just crudely say that, well, the
ultimate source is basically the solar nebula where it all started. It was followed by the
formation of the bulk earth. From the bulk earth, we had separation of the core and
mantle. And once the core is separated out it is not involved in the process afterwards
which is of interest to us as far as the ore deposit formation is concerned. We have to
keep in mind that formation of earth from the solar nebula, the core from the bulk earth,
bulk crust from the mantle and subsequently differentiation of the bulk crust to upper and
lower, are all essentially fractionation processes during which elements get preferentially
partitioned between the two fractionating reservoirs leaving one fraction richer and the
other depleted with respect to elements. This enrichment or depletion is primarily
controlled by the volatility of the elements (or compatible – incompatible nature that we
shall discuss later). For example, during fractionation of the earth from the nebula, most
refractory elements got fractionated and enriched in the earth and similar process took
place during subsequent core → mantle, mantle → bulk crust and bulk crust →
continental crust fractionations. We can label such fractionations as ‘stage -1’, ‘stage –
2’, ‘stage – 3’, ‘stage – 4’, and so on. Ores form from crustal rocks through such
fractionation (enrichment or beneficiation as already) processes – the only difference
being that it may need multiple stages of enrichment for converting a rock to an ore.

For example, any of the metals which are siderophile in their tendency, they have an
affinity for iron, like platinum group of metal and gold, got partitioned into the core and
were not available in that much quantity to form ore in later fractionation. During the
crust and mantle fractionation most of the lithophile elements got partitioned into the
crust and further got enriched in the upper continental crust where further enrichment
processes operated to form ore deposits. This process could happen in just 1 stage of
enrichment or multiple stages of enrichment depending on what is the abundance of that
particular metal in the upper crust and what is the enrichment factor that it will require,
and also, we discussed that the availability of any particular metal in the quantity that we
have them, is essentially controlled by fundamental parameters like whether they form
their discrete mineral phase or not. Because, it will be sometimes easier if that particular
metal is present in it is discrete mineral phase, it will be easy for us to extract it or
separate it out and get the metal out of it or use the mineral if can be used directly for as
a raw material.

If the metal remains in trace quantity in common rock in the lattice of the silicate
minerals, it becomes difficult for that particular metal to be extracted out. The very good
example here is germanium and molybdenum. Germanium and molybdenum have near
identical abundance in the crust, but the total amount of molybdenum available to us in
the form of deposit is far more than the total amount that is available to us for
germanium. Because, germanium is a lithophile element and remains in the lattices of the
silicate minerals, whereas, molybdenum is a chalcophile element and forms its sulfide
that we can recover in larger quantity whenever it forms an ore body.

You may recall that ore deposit formation is correlatable to broad earth processes -
magmatism, sedimentation, metamorphism driven by the endogenic and exogenic
processes under diverse tectonic environments. So, tectonism is always the operative
force and there are diverse tectonic environments, that provides a broad framework for
classification of ore deposits. We will see how we can classify them; this also
emphasizes the importance of the understanding of the behaviour of metals in different
environments.

In a magmatic environment, enrichment and formation of ore deposits can be visualized

as fractionation of metals in a melting regime involving solid – melt equilibria. Many
metals get partitioned into the melt and the melt gives rise to ore deposit on
crystallization, which again is a melt – solid interaction process. It may so happen that a
parent homogeneous melt may split into two fractions on cooling and metals get
partitioned between the two melt fractions, one of them being enriched in some metals
give rise to an ore deposit. Here the process could be visualized as a melt – melt regime.
There could be situation in which a parent melt may exsolve a water-rich fluid at a late
stage of crystallization evolution and in such a process, many metals may get partitioned
into the exsolving fluid (magmatic volatile) phase and thus this process is essentially a
melt – fluid interaction. Finally, a fluid phase (irrespective of its source of derivation) in
the crust may get enriched with respect metals through its interaction with crustal rocks
at elevated temperatures and may deposit these metals at suitable locales under
favourable physicochemical environments. This can be visualized as a solid – fluid and
fluid – solid interaction process that also result in formation of ore deposits. This entire
spectrum of interactions has their identity in very specific types of deposits that they
form and also sometimes in the characteristic mineral assemblage in the ore deposits
formed by these processes. Quite often it is possible to retrieve the physicochemical
environment of formation of ore deposits through a systematic study of the minerals. In
other words, mineralogy of the ore is the most fundamental attribute.

So, the first and foremost attribute of a mineral deposit or of an ore body to be very
specific, are the minerals or the mineralogy. Mineralogy of the ore essentially means all
the ore and gangue minerals (irrespective of their abundance or proportion in an ore)
present in the ore and their mutual intergrowth. The mutual intergrowth of the minerals
in an ore, what is generally termed as ‘texture’ help in establishing the sequence in
which minerals in the ore formed. You may note that all the minerals in an ore that you
see, need not have formed at the same instant of time and all cannot be at equilibrium.
We know that if a system is defined with respect to a finite number of components, then
the number of equilibrium phases cannot be more than what is permissible by the
phase rule. It is quite obvious that in an ore there can be more than one stable
equilibrium mineral phases that formed under changing physico-chemical state of the
environment (defined by intensive variables such as temperature, pressure and other
compositional parameters). In the introductory course lecture, we discussed the mineral
kingdom’s division into silicates and non-silicates. These non-silicates are all oxides
sulfides carbonates and so on. So, what is essentially required is that we must identify
what are the minerals that are present in an ore body.

Mineral 1, mineral 2 …….. mineral n, because this gives us the first-hand information.
Because minerals as we stated earlier, a metal which is occurring in it is oxide form, a
sulfide form of sulfate or carbonate and so on, this is very much controlled by the
chemistry, by the physicochemical environment in which the ore body is forming. So,
understanding the mineral constituting the ore is the most important and fundamental
aspect. Study of minerals in an ore body has two objectives – identifying all ore and
gangue minerals for a complete characterization and documentation of the textural
details (mutual intergrowth of constituent minerals). Study of texture serves two
important purposes : (i) deduction of the paragenetic sequence (relative timing of
formation of the minerals) based on which the physicochemical parameters are deduced
through application of phase equilibria and (ii) for evaluation of suitable method of
recovery of minerals of interest from the ore. (see Fig. 2)
 Ore Texture

Primary Growth Secondary (Reaction, Replacement,

Alteration, Deformation)

• Exsolution (spinoidal
Monomineralic Polymineralic
decomposition)
• Annealing
• Fluid assisted
replacement
• Crystallization from
Melt
• Precipitation from
Fluid
• equilibrium / non-
equilibrium crystallization of
one or more than one mineral
phases and resultant textures
Fig.2 A broad idea about processes giving rise to mineral intergrowths that can be
visualized from study of ore texture.

(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e) (f)

Fig. 3 Examples of some mineral intergrowths observed in ores seen under the
microscope (incident light) (po – pyrrhotite, py – Pyrite, pn – pentlandite, ilm – ilmenite,
hm – hematite, gn – galena, ttd – tetrahedrite, sph – sphalerite)
Fig. 3 shows some examples of mineral intergrowths observed in ores. In (a) you see an
association of pyrite and pyrrhotite, (the two minerals in Fe-S system) could be a case of
equilibrium on non-equilibrium assemblage. In (b) you see many minerals in the
complex system (Cu-Fe-Zn-Pb-As-Sb-S) system. In (c) the mineral has formed by
concentric growth zone, in (d) the mineral present as needles in criss-cross pattern
formed as a result of exsolution from the host mineral, in (e) there is another pattern of
exsolution of pentlandite from pyrrhotite and in (f) you also see an exsolution
phenomenon resulting in a different pattern of intergrowth. These features are interpreted
in terms of their relative timing of their formation.

Mineral Relative Time

M1 ______

M2 _____

M3 ______________________

M4 ___________________

M5 ______________

M6 ______________

M7 ______

Fig. 4 A sample mineral paragenetic sequence for an ore body deduced through study of
texture of ore and associated minerals. The minerals include both ore and gangue
(silicate, carbonate etc..). The length of the horizontal bars would be based on the
proportion of that mineral in the ore and is likely to have crystallized for a longer
duration (may not necessarily true always). Any two bars of identical time span is
interpreted to be an equilibrium assemblage (e.g. M1 and M2). M3 is interpreted to have
started crystallizing alone, later joined by M4 which outlasted M3. M5 and M6 could
belong to the same stage or could be secondary minerals that formed later and M7 was
the last mineral phase to form. There could be many possibilities. This table of
paragenetic sequence forms the basis for detailed thermodynamic analysis of mineral
assemblages.
There are excellent text books on ore petrography that teach the ‘trick of the trade’ and
here we shall not discuss them in detail.

Fig. 4 is an example of a paragenetic sequence of ore in which there are 7 minerals and
based on textural relationship between them, the relative timing has been deduced. Once
all minerals are known (their compositions are also known) and such a sequence is
available, we can go ahead with thermodynamic analysis of phase equilibria with
constraints imposed by the phase rule. We need to represent the ore as a system and must
identify the minimum number of components that can explain the compositional
characteristics of the ore. (You will become more familiar after you carry out the
exercises in the lab).

The other important purpose that is served by ore petrography (textural relationship of
constituent minerals) is more of economic importance.

(a) (b)

Fig. 5 Examples of mineral intergrowths – in (a) the white phase is present as tiny
inclusions in the grey phase and in (b) they both are present as large grains with straight
contacts. In the first case, it will be difficult to recover the two phases independently
whereas in the second case it will be easy (why?)

Such study of ore petrography is done for feasibility of mineral deposits for economic
exploitation which we shall discuss in some more detail later.
 Module – 1 (continued)
Classification of Mineral Deposits and Method Of Investigation

To recapitulate briefly, paragenetic sequence of deposition of ore and gangue minerals

help us in reconstructing the physicochemical environment of formation of ore deposits
through use of simple principles of phase equilibria and equilibrium thermodynamics.
The information of the intensive variables and compositional variables that we retrieve
from the study of the mineral paragenesis are integrated and help in understanding the
process. Further characterization comes from quantification of several physicochemical
parameters like temperature pressure fugacity of sulfur oxygen and other compositional
parameters. A large class of deposits owe their origin to the activity of a hot aqueous
fluid which could be of diverse sources that we will be discussing in the part of this
course devoted to hydrothermal deposits. And after we characterize the deposits with
respect to their broader specific geological setting, host, rock mode of occurrence
morphology which is a very important attribute of ore deposits, physicochemical
environment, the sources of metals (because the basic questions that we pose whenever
there is a mineral deposit in terms of its origin that where from the metal has come where
from other constituents like sulfur has come).

So, these are the basic queries that we address. It is quite important to study ore deposits
and formulate genetic models. It is just not only for academic purpose, but also that as
from the very beginning, we have stated the basic objective of this course that the
scientific knowledge, the knowledge base that we generate, that you acquire and that we
rationalize on the formation of the mineral deposits, we utilize the knowledge for the
exploration of these deposits in areas where such deposits are not known to be existing.

So, at this point of time suppose that we have some idea about the mineral deposits in
terms of the broader processes - endogenic and exogenic processes that give rise to
mineral deposit formation.

So, now then we will use that to classify the mineral deposits. So, here is one such
scheme for classification of the mineral deposits since we know that the 3 broad
processes.: the magmatic process, sedimentary process and metamorphic process and this
magmatic process could be divided into 2 - volcanic and plutonic because we know that
these are somehow different in the mode in which they operate. So, the plutonic or the
sub plutonic process or the volcanic process; the plutonic process might give rise to
rocks of diverse composition felsic intermediate and mafic.

The felsic rocks generally are the granitic rocks or the carbonatite. The granitic rock will
encompass the range from granite to monzonite quartz diorite or diorite type of
composition and generally we observe that mineral deposits of copper molybdenum tin
tungsten uranium and gold are associated with these felsic intrusives. The intermediate
composition rocks give rise to the iron titanium vanadium oxide deposit A very
important class of deposits which are the chromium nickel and platinum group metals
which are associated with ultramafic magmatism.

And in the sedimentary, we have a classification - broad classification of the sedimentary

facies into detrital and chemical. So, in the detrital; the deposits that we discussed are the
uranium quartz pebble conglomerate deposits and the ‘placer’ type gold-uranium
deposits. They will come under this category. The detrital (result of mechanical
concentration) facies we also have uranium, gold, tin, thorium and tungsten deposits.
They generally are found in this environment being result of detrital sedimentation
process.

We have chemical sedimentation which we have seen the large class the banded iron
formation and also manganese and uranium. They do result from the chemical process -
the chemical sedimentation in response to change in the physicochemical environment
from transportation to deposition as we saw uranium being transported only the plus 6
state and being deposited when the condition is reduced to plus 4 and so on.

We could also add up a little bit to the sedimentary environment because some process
which could also go on along with the deposition of sedimentary rocks in a basin which
we call them broadly the syn-sedimentary exhalative or the syn diagenetic deposits.
Quite a good amount of the base metal resources - lead and zinc, come from these
deposits and the weathering related deposits mostly aluminum and nickel and enrichment
process which happens on the surface operative process purely exogenic in nature -
which we described as the earth’s own beneficiation mechanism. They do not give rise
to the primary mineral deposit, but they can enrich an existing deposit to a higher
concentration which we will discuss them in the later part. The metamorphic process -
we see that either it could be a contact metamorphic or contact metasomatic type of
process which give rise to the skarn deposit which are very rich sources of tungsten
molybdenum, tin and iron even there are deposits with gold they are generally named as
the skarns.

Regional metamorphism - there is no much of metallic mineral deposits that are known
to be resulting directly from the process of metamorphism, but graphite, aluminosilicate
minerals like kyanite sillimanite andalusite, they do result from this process and under
the metamorphic group, we could also include something the process which would be
metamorphogenic rather than truly metamorphic. Something in addition to
metamorphism also takes place, they are exemplified by most of the gold deposits
occurring in older geological terrains, we will look at their characteristic in more details.

And under the volcanic category we can have volcanism that is taking place on the ocean
floor or the island arc or within the continents. So, the ocean floor, island arc we have
seen examples of them like giving rise to the volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS)
deposits which are comparable to the present day mineralization process which are
observed on the mid oceanic ridge systems and are also believed to have older analogues
like the example which is gave in case of the Noranda deposit in Quebec, Canada or
Cyprus copper deposit - they are all volcanogenic massive sulfate deposits.

And in the continents where there are volcanism associated with rich mineralization of
gold silver and base metals and if you look at the tectonic map, you could delineate
something which is labeled as the ‘pacific ring of fire’ all around of which we get
volcanic islands and in those volcanic islands like the Indonesian Island, Papua, New
Guinea, Lihir Island, Fiji, Philippines and the Japanese island arc. So, we see that there
are some very rich mineralization of base metal and the precious metal - they go by the
name as the volcano associated epithermal deposit because their near surface operating
process. So, this is one scheme of classification this is definitely not very complete. You
could possibly add a few more of them, but conforming to the broad framework of the
classification scheme that we are adopting here is mainly a process based. (diagram at
the end)
 Jensen and Bateman gave more wider classification scheme. It also takes into
consideration some very rare type, but sometimes important deposit resulting from the
process of sublimation. We all know sublimation this is deposition from vapor. We see
some deposits of sulfur as well as some very low volatile metals like mercury, arsenic
and antimony, occuring in hot spring kind of situation where this process could be
broadly categorized a sublimation in addition to the one which followed is our previous
scheme magmatic sedimentary hydrothermal metamorphic. And sometimes evaporation
process also becomes important in given rise to some specific mineral resources. For
example, gypsum which is a mineral for our cement industry comes from the evaporate
beds which result by the evaporation of seawater in landlocked basins. The supergene
oxidation and secondary sulphide enrichment is essentially a process by which
preexisting ore deposits become enriched that is how the name supergene sulfide
enrichment is proposed and they are controlled by the exogenous process because the
surface weathering process is controlled by the precipitation (the surface water) it
acquires it chemistry in relation to the rocks and the soil and of course. One thing we
should remember that the exogenous process is very important because it forms soil and
soil is very very important for us as a resource because many things depend on it.

And residual concentration which we have already discussed as a mechanism by which

deposits can form - good example is the bauxite deposits occurring in many of the
continents. The classification scheme of Bateman and Jensen is given below for your
reference.
Mineral Deposits

Magmatic Sedimentary Hydrothermal Metamorphic Evaporatic

Bacteriogenic Residual SO & SSE

Mechanical and
Residual Concentration
Sublimation Submarine
Contact Exhalative and
Metasomatism

Fig. 2 Bateman’s Classification scheme of Mineral deposits.

 • Magmatic (Cr, Ni, PGM in M/UM)
Syngenetic • Sedimentary (Fe, Mn)
• Metamorphic (graphite, aluminosilicate)
• Volcanogenic (mafic, felsic) (Cu, Pb, Zn) (?)
Mineral / Ore
Deposits • Epithermal Veins (Qtz) – Cu, Pb, Zn, Au, Ag, As,
Sb, Hg ..in brittle deformation zones of the
Epigenetic crust (fissure veins, ladder veins, saddle reefs,
stockworks etc)
• Metamorphogenic (Au, Ag) (Shear-zone
hosted in metamorphosed greenstones)
• Deposits associated with unconformities,
continental accretion zones (U, Au)

All these in red have something in common – they owe their origin to activities of hot aqueous (water) fluid
(hydro – water, thermal – heat)

Fig. 3 Classification based on ore-rock (time and process) relationship.

But in our course of lecture will not be exactly following this, but will follow the broader
process that we have discussed. In the literature of mineral deposits, there are many ways
also to classify them in more genetic term - genesis mean the origin (the processes
involved in the origin) and evolution.

So, a particular class of deposit are known by the term is syngenetic – ‘syn’ generally
stands for same time as the formation of the rock in which they are occurring. So,
syngenetic essentially means that the ore body and the rocks in which the ore body is
occurring they formed at the same time, not only the same time, but with the same
process (see Fig. 3). So, this is how the syngenetic process where the magmatic deposits
giving rise to chromium, nickel, platinum group of metals in the mafic ultramafic rocks
unambiguously belong to this syngenetic category where the rock and the ore itself is a
product of the magmatic process - magmatic crystallization process.

Similarly, the iron which we see in the form of the banded iron formation and also the
manganese in different sedimentary basins, they are also syngenetic they do form as part
of the chemogenic sedimentation process itself. The volcanogenic massive sulfide
deposits which form on the ocean floor, we can also categorize them as syngenetic in
terms of the time, but in terms of the process it requires a little bit more than exactly the
sea floor basalt which is coming on the mid ocean ridges to give rise to this deposit.
The ones which come under epigenetic - ‘epi’ stands for the term anything that is not
related in time. So, it is something later or something different. So, epigenetic means the
mineral deposit came into existence anytime later than the time at which the associated
rocks form. Examples are many - rather the number of mineral deposits which come
under the category of epigenetic are much more than the ones which come under the
syngenetic. The epithermal veins generally represent the near surface processes – these
class of such deposits give rise to copper lead zinc and precious metals. They are present
in the brittle deformation zone in the crust as we discussed in our introductory lecture.
The metamorphogenic gold which we just discussed that along with the metamorphism
there is something in addition that happens which will see what the additional thing is
later. There are crustal scale deformation in the form of shear zones or faults and
depositional discontinuity such as unconformities are the locales which are more
favorable for formation of certain deposits which will be later than the time at which the
host rocks form.

So, these deposits which were representing as epigenetic all these in red have one thing
in common that they owe their origin to the activities of hot aqueous fluid that is water
rich - which will be one of the major topics that we will be covering the hydrothermal
deposits because the number of such deposits is are too numerous compared to deposits
which form from direct magnetic process or any direct sedimentary process. So,
involvement of a fluid which is there in the crust is very important information of the ore
deposits.

Conformable to Strata and are therefore logically

Stratiform Syngenetic; simple mode of occurrence

Mineral / Ore
Deposits Diverse and complex mode of
Stratabound occurrence; Confined to a particular
stratum; Epigenetic by rule rather than
exception.

Fig. 4 Classification of ore deposits based on morphological conformity with host rocks.

We also do classify ore deposits based on their morphology into stratiform and strarta
bound types based on conformity to morphology of host rocks. Stratiform - the term is
pretty straight forward that they are very much conformable to the strata in which they
are occurring. The examples are the chromitite (chromite-rich) layers in ultramafic rocks.
The terms stratabound is applied to ore deposits which may not conform to the
morphology, but restricted to a certain stratum / rock unit. Stratiform deposits are
syngenetic by default whereas, the stratabound deposits are diverse pretty complex mode
of occurrence, but they are generally observed to be confined to some particular stratum
in a sequence. Say for example, if we have a sequence of sandstone shale limestone and
is the sequence is intruded by felsic magmatic rock, we generally find that the deposit
which forms will be very much confined to the limestone horizon. This indicates that
there must be some chemical relationship between the one particular stratum in the
sequence to the formation of the ore body and they are mostly epigenetic with very few
exceptions.

Hypothermal 3-15 km
300 – 600 deg C

Mineral / Ore Mesothermal 1.2 – 4.5 km

Deposits 200 – 300 deg C

Epithermal 0 – 1.5 km
50 – 200 deg C

Telethermal Near surface

~ 100 deg C

Fig. 5 Classification of ore deposits in terms of their depth and temperatures of formation
with respect to a magmatic body.

Previously the ore deposits were also classified into hypothermal, mesothermal
epithermal and telethermal (see Fig. 5). These are basically based on their special
relationship to a magma because of the belief that that all the deposits that we see are
actually result from magma. So, the deposits were classified based on the spetial relation
to the magma the hypothermal were the deepest ones 3 to 15 kilometers and the highest
temperature 300 to 600 degree centigrade, mesothermal being 1.2 to 4.5 kilometer,
epithermal is more surficial where the temperature also is much less, telethermal was
only those deposits which were specially far more away or distantly from the intrusive
body of the magmatic body which is supposed to be responsible in giving rise to the
mineral deposit.

So, what we generally see is this classification schemes are all incomplete and tentative ,
but they just provide a broad framework on which we can base our theories about genesis
and there are scopes still there to revise the deposits in the classification scheme and also
there are instances in which a deposit which is earlier classified into one particular
category later on because of its because the changes are the difference in the attributes
that is observed later on could also be classified differently than what it was done
originally.

Summarizing, we have defined what mineral resources are, conceptualized the control
that is exerted in their occurrence in the quantity and quality. We familiarize ourselves
with basic terminologies ore body ore mineral province mineral belt we attempted to
rationalize the distribution of mineral resources in space and time.

By studying these mineral deposits, hypothesize them, understand their origin and then
propose a classification scheme and so this is basically providing us a broad fundamental
insight to these ore deposits to continue looking at them in greater details, although this
course does not intend to go deeper to ore genesis.

As we know that mineral deposits are results of the earth’s own beneficiation processes,
they are distinct and discrete and they are enriched part in the earth’s crust and occur in
association with common crustal rocks.

They can be called as anomalies in the earth’s crust, because concentration of any metal
of interest is higher than the surrounding, higher to the extent that they can be
economically exploited and they occur distinctly in variable dimensions, sometimes an
ore body can run for more than 100 kilometers in strike length, sometimes it may get
terminated within a few hundred meters in strike length.
Similarly, in the depth and width dimension also, they are variable, and we see the whole
spectrum of mineral deposits of many different metals and nonmetals in the upper
continental crust. The available quantity of any metal of interest, as we have seen, they
vary in millions or billions of tons, taking abundant metals like aluminum and iron,
whose quantity vary in terms of billions of tons and scarce metals like gold, platinum
group of metals, rhenium - they are present only in a few thousands of tons, and this can
be explained based on fundamental controls exerted by the abundance of these elements
in the earth’s crust and in particular, in the continental crust and they obey something
which we call as an enrichment factor; that means, the minimum grade , minimum value
of the metal, minimum concentration of the metal which makes it an ore divided by the
average crustal abundance (a threshold value of concentration of metals), we can
calculate a value and say that by how many times that particular metal has to be enriched
to form an ore body in the crust.

We saw that there is a general non-uniformity in distribution in space and time of this
mineral deposits all across the continents, and as far as the distribution in time is
concerned, we do see some significant variations, going from the older era to the
younger era, and with the thing in mind that most of the continental crust are covered by
rocks which are old (Precambrain) rocks. And thus we get the deposits from them which
are also of that comparable age. Ore deposits are a result of a very complex interplay of
the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere system, which has been evolving parallely with
the evolution of the continental lithosphere and that is how we see variations in the
nature of mineralization of different metals, of same genetic types, genetic types of
different metals and the different genetic types of the same metals.

Mineral deposits are a result of operation of earth’s broad processes which are the
endogenic and the exogenic process which were discussed. For the endogenic process,
the energy is derived by the earth’s own heat engine, and the exogenic process have been
mainly driven by the sun which are the surface operating process, and they can be
somehow linked. The weathering erosion process are much faster, where there are active
continental uplift and active continental margin situations compared to parts of the
continents where there has been paneplanation or there are no much of active tectonism
going on.
And although they are products of the earth’s broad processes, the deposits vary in their
size from hundreds of kilometer square area to even sometimes within just about a
kilometer square in size. So, that leads us to believe that in addition to the broader
processes which are operating on a broader scale or larger dimension, there are also some
local scale controls which are exerted in actually giving rise to the enrichment process in
many such cases.

The diverse mineral deposits occurring in their different mineralogies, can be understood
from the very basic nature of the metals or the elements, the geochemical affinity (based
on which they are classified), and the enrichment that took place in subsequent stages of
fractionation of the of the planetary fractionation such as the core, mantle and the crust.

They give us the basic understanding to, behind the principles of ore mineral deposit
formation. Although there may queries, some of them are still unanswered. For example,
we know that during the core mantle fractionation most of the iron was partitioned into
the core, at the same time we get huge quantity of iron as available finally, forming ore
deposit in the continental crust.

Therefore, that would lead us to believe that this fractionation process was either
incomplete or something else happened after the formation of the core, sometimes which
is also talked about in the context of gold, gold being a siderophile element, is also
supposed to have partitioned into the core. Still we do get the quantity of gold in the
form of its deposits which might have been derived from the mantle, that led to the
proposition of the ‘late veneer hypothesis’ by which the later materials which accreted
to form the earth, gave the necessary metals to form their mineral deposits.

The deposit forming processes operate within 10 to 15 kilometers depth in the crust, but
only when they are exposed within the top 5 kilometers, they are accessible to us and we
are able to recover them, we are able to economically exploit them, and there are surface
operating processes within the top 5 kilometers of the earth’s crust and the suitable
locales in the earth’s crust there could be a recent or ancient sedimentary basin, where
the basin could be deformed or undeformed, could be a basin of marine as well as
continental derivation, which are the areas or the zones in which deposits of various
metals occur.
There are zones of brittle ductile deformations such as fault zones, shear zones running
for several hundreds of kilometers, crustal scale features within or in the vicinity of
magmatic bodies. These are the important locales in which we see the mineral deposits.

We also discussed that one of the important fundamental attributes of any ore body or
mineral deposit, is the mineralogy, and mineralogy gives us the first-hand information
about the physicochemical environment of formation of mineral deposits. The
physicochemical environment we defined by using various intensive parameters; such as
temperature, pressure and the compositional parameters; such as the fugacity of gaseous
species such as oxygen and sulfur.

The important chemical parameter in an aqueous environment is the activity of the

hydrogen ion that is the pH, the concentration or the activities of the various anionic and
cationic species, including the metal ions which form their mineral deposits. In
systematic study of a mineral deposit, the very first information is obtained from the
minerals that constitute the ore body, and from the mineral by systematic study of the
minerals under the microscope studying their intergrowth. the textural relationship
between them, the paragenesis or the paragenetic sequence is deciphered. We use this
paragenetic sequence to explain the different intensive and the extensive variables and
sometimes we plot them on different types of phase diagrams; such as the temperature
and composition diagram, pressure temperature diagram, temperature versus log of
fugacity of oxygen diagram or temperature versus log fS2 diagrams and so on, to interpret
the environmental parameters.

(Refer to Lab Exercise Manual)

Based on the rock - ore association, tectonic environment sources of metal and other
essential constituents and working out the details of the local scale processes; mineral
deposits are classified into various genetic types, and there are many hypotheses of the
mineral deposit formation that have been proposed, and such hypotheses are still in the
process of refinement, because discovery of new type of deposits, observation of new
types of features which were not seen before or the explanations were not available,
because of some limitations.
 MINERAL DEPOSITS

Magmatic Sedimentary Metamorphic

Volcanic
Plutonic / Sub Detrital
(Mechanical
Plutonic
Concentration) Contact
(U,Au,Sn, Th,W) Metamorphic:
Ocean Floor / Continental Felsic (Skarns)
: Granitic (Cu,
Island Arc Chemical: Fe, Mn, U
(Sn,W,Mo,Fe)
Mo, Sn, W,U,
Au) and evaporites
Epithermal Deposits : Carbonatite
Volcanogenic (REE)
Regional
Massive sulfide in Young Volcanic Syn-sedimentary Metamorphic
Deposits Islands Exhalative / Syn – (Graphite and
(Ag, Au, Cu) Intermediate Diagenetic (Pb, Zn, Cu)
Cu, Pb, Zn Aluminosilicates)
Anorthosite
(Fe,Ti,V)
Weathering: (Al, Ni,) Metamorphogenic
Supergene (Au, Ag)
Mafic / Enrichment (Cu)
Ultramafic
Cr, Ni, PGM
Biogenic:

Fig.6 A process based classification of Mineral Deposits. The rock-association becomes

inherent in such a classification scheme. In this diagram also, the deposit examples in
blue essentially involvement of fluids.

p.s. It may be noted that some text books on Ore Deposits / Ore Geology describe ore
deposits under specific rock association such as Ores associated with mafi/ultramafic,
intermediate, felsic magmatic rocks, clastic and chemogenic sediments and so on.