ORE DEPOSITS

Ore is a metalliferous mineral, or an aggregate of metalliferous minerals, more or less mixed with
gangue (non ore, wall rock or waste rock) which from the standpoint of the metallurgist can be
treated at a profit.

Economic Consideration

Principal steps in the establishment and operation of a mine:

1. Mineral exploration: to discover an ore body

2. Feasibility study: to prove its commercial viability

3. Mine development: establishment of the entire infrastructure

4. Mining: extraction of the ore from the ground

5. Ore dressing (mineral processing): milling of the ore, separation of ore minerals from the
gangue, separation of the ore minerals into concentrates

6. Smelting: recover metals from concentrates

7. Marketing: shipping the metal or concentrate if not smelted to the buyer

Some important factors in evaluation of a potential ore body:

1. Ore grade: The concentration of a metal in an ore body is called its grade and is usually
expressed in terms of % or ppm units. various economic and sometimes political
considerations will determine the lowest grade of ore that can be mined at a profit, this is
termed cut-off grade.

2. By-products: in some ores several metals are present and the sale of one may help finance
the mining of another e.g U in South African Au ores.

3. Commodity prices: the price of metals is a vital factor. The prices of many metals are
governed by supply and demand and daily fluctuations in price are common. The price of
many metals has not kept in pace with inflation;this has has had drastic effects on the level
of recent mineral exploration, the profitability of many mines and economy whole nations.

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 4. Mineralogical form: the properties of mineral govern the ease with which existing
technology can extract and refine certain metals and this may affect the cut-off grade. Thus
Ni is far more readily recovered from sulphide than from silicate ores and sulphide ores can
be worked down to about 0.5% whereas silicate ores must assay about 1.5% to be economic.

5. Grain size and shape: The recovery is the percentage of the total metal contained in the ore
that is recovered in the concentrate. You might think if you grind an ore to an ultra-fine
powder then complete separation of mineral phases might be possible to make 100%
recovery. The present state of technology is such that ultra-fine size range inhibits high
recovery. Small minerals grains and grains finely inter-grown with other minerals are
difficult or impossible to recover in the processing plant, and recovery may be poor.
Recovery is technology dependant e.g Au.

6. Undesirable substances: deleterious substances may be present in both ore and gangue
minerals. These may be various elements that inhibit the efficiency of custom smelting
operations e.g As, Hg in Cu ores; P in Fe ores; As in Ni ores etc. acid leach is often used in
extracting U and he presence of calcite may reduce the efficiency of the extraction forcing
the use of less effective methods such as alkali leach methods. Presence of expressively hard
minerals e.g topaz in Sn ores increases abrasion and costs of milling.

7. Size and shape of deposits: large low grade, near surface deposits can be worked by open
pit methods, whilst thin tabular veins will necessitate more expensive underground methods,
although they can be generally worked in smaller volumes so that relatively small initial
capital outlay is required. Ores of regular shape are usually cheaper to mine than irregular
shaped bodies, particularly when they include barren zones.

8. Ore character: Loose unconsolidated beach sand deposits can be mined cheaply by
dredging and does not require crushing. Hard compact ore must be drilled, blasted and
crushed. In hard rock mining a related aspect is the strength of the rock, weak or badly
sheared will have to be bolted and supported, and in open pits a gentler slope to the pit sides
will be required, which in turn will affect the waste-to-ore (stripping) ratio.

9. Cost of capital: thanks to inflation few companies can afford to extract ore with their own
capital. Thus the revenue from the mining operations must cover taxes, royalties, repayment
of capital + interest, and provide a profit to shareholders.

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 10. Location: geographic factors affect costs, e.g water, power, transport, roads, houses,
schools, hospitals etc.

11. Environmental considerations: Cost of compensation and eventual rehabilitation of mined

12. Taxes: greedy governments may demand so much tax that mining companies cannot make
reasonable profit, or alternatively some progressive (not conservative!) governments have
creative tax laws that can help reduce the cost in initial high cost years e.g exploration,
setting up a mine.

13. Political factors: fear of nationalisation need I say more!

Geochemical considerations

It is a tradition to divide ore metals into groups with special names:

1. Precious metals: Au, Ag, Pt and platinum group(PGM)

2. Non-ferrous: Cu, Pb, Zn, Sn (these 4 are called base metals) and Al

3. Iron and ferro-alloy metals: Fe, Mn, Ni, Cr, Mo, W, V , Co

4. Minor metals and related non-metals: Sb, As, Be, Bi, Cd, Mg, Hg, REE, Se, Ta, Te, Ti, Zr

5. Fissionable metals: U, Th, Ra.

For the formation of an ore body the metals must be enriched to levels considerably higher than
their average crustal abundances, these are called concentration factors.

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The nature and morphology of the principal types of ore deposits

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Some Terminology:

 Syngenetic deposits is one which has formed at the same time as the rocks within which it
occurs and it is sometimes part of a stratigraphic succession like an Fe-rich sedimentary
horizon.

 An epigenetic deposit, on the other hand is one believed to have come into being after the
host rocks in which it occurs. A good igneous analogy is a dyke; among ore deposits is a
vein.

 If an orebody is longer in one direction than the other we can designate this long dimension
as its strike. The inclination of the orebody perpendicular to the strike will be its dip and the
longest dimension of the ore deposits its axis. The plunge of the axis is measured in the
vertical plane including its axis, whereas the pitch or rake can be measured in any other
plane usually in the plane of the strike.

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It is possible to classify orebodies in the same way we classified igneous intrusions according to
whether they are discordant or concordant with the lithological banding (often bedding) in the
enclosing rocks.

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Discordant bodies can be subdivided into those orebodies which have an approximately regular
shape, as opposed to those which are irregular.

Discordant Bodies Regular Shaped

(a) Tabular bodies: In this class we have veins, extensive in 2D and restricted in the 3rd
dimension.

Veins are often inclined, and in such cases we speak of the hanging wall (from classic mining
parlance if your standing in a drift/tunnel and vein is exposed in front of you, the hanging wall are
those rocks on the side of the vein above your head) and footwall (once again, those rocks below
the vein, those you are standing on).

Veins often pinch and swell as they are followed up or down a stratigraphic sequence. Swell
structures are the easily workable. These pinch and swell structures are a consequence of the way
fractures propagate through rocks of differing mechanical properties. When there is movement
along a fault or fracture, the rocks of great mechanical strength, competent lithologies form steep
fractures, whereas those of lesser competence defract the fractures to shallow angles. The
competent lithologies will form open fractures that may later be filled by vein material, whereas the
incompetent lithologies will remain closed and will be the bearing surfaces.

Veins typically form in repeated parallel structures reflecting a regional stress field in the rocks.

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 (b) Tubular bodies: These bodies are relatively short in 2D and long in the 3rd D. when vertical
they are called pipes, when horizontal they are called mantos.

Infilling of mineralized breccia (angular broken rock) are particularly common e.g Cu-bearing
breccia pipes of Messina in S.Africa.

Pipes and mantos may anastomose such that pipes act as feeders to montos.

In some tubular bodies formed by the sub-horizontal flow of mineralizing fluid, ore grade
mineralisation may be discontinuous, thus producing pod-shaped ore deposits.

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Irregular Shaped Deposits

(a) Disseminated deposits: In these deposits ore minerals are peppered throughout the host
rock e.g diamonds in kimberlites.

In other deposits the ore are disseminations are grouped along tiny cross-cutting veinlets which
comprise stockworks. These types of ore deposits grade away outwards into sub-economic zones
that cut lithological boundaries and cut-off grades are strictly determined from specific assays.

Disseminated deposits may have cylindrical, cap-like or pear-shaped form.

Stockworks most commonly occur in felsic to intermediate plutonic igneous rocks, but they may cut
across the contact into the country rocks. Disseminated deposits host most of the worlds Cu, Mo,
and they are also important hosts of Sn, Au, Hg, and U.

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 (b) Irregular replacement deposits: Many ore deposits have formed by the replacement of pre-
existing rocks, typically carbonate rich sediments.

These deposits form at high temperatures at contacts with medium to large sized intrusions. Such
deposits are called skarns.

The ore deposits are characterized by the formation of calc-silicate minerals such as diopside,
wollastonite, garnet and actinolite.

These deposits are extremely irregular in shape; tongues of ore may project along joints, faults etc
and the distribution within the contact aureole is often apparently capricious. Structural changes
may cause abrupt termination of orebodies. Common metals formed in skarns are Fe, Cu, W, C, Zn,
Mo, Sn, and U.

Other replacement deposits occur called flats. These are horizontal or subhorizontal bodies of ore
which branch out from veins and lie on carbonate host rocks beneath an impervious cover such as
shale.

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Concordant Orebodies

(a) Sedimentary hosted: Concordant ore bodies are important sources of metals,
predominantly base metals. These deposits may be integral parts of the stratigraphy as in the
case of many ironstones, or they may be epigenetic infilling of pore spaces or replacement
orebodies.

Usually these orebodies show a considerable development in 2D, parallel to the bedding and limited
development perpendiculars to it and for this reason are called stratiform.

(i.)Limestone Hosted: Limestones are very common host rocks for base metal sulphide
deposits. In a dominantly carbonate sequence ore is often developed in a small number of
preferred beds or at certain sedimentary interfaces.

These are often zones in which the permeability has been increased by dolomitization (the
replacement of calcite by dolomite results in a 5% decrease in volume) or fracturization.

When they form only a small part of the stratigraphic succession, limestones, because of their
solubility and reactivity, can become favourable horizons for mineralisation e.g Pb-Zn ores of
Bingham Utah.

(ii.)Shale Hosted: Shales, mudstones, argillites and slates are important host rocks for
concordant orebodies which are often remarkably continuous and extensive. In Germany
and Poland the Kupferschiefer of the upper Permian is prime example. This is Cu-bearing
shale a meter or so thick which in places had plan dimensions up to 130Km 2, Zambia Zaire
(Katanga).

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The worlds largest single Pb-Zn orebody occurs at Sullivan, BC. The host rocks are Precambrian
argillites.

(iii.)Sandstone Hosts: Not all of the Zambian copperbelt deposits occur in shales, some occur
in altered feldspathic sandstones.

Conformable deposits of Cu often occur in some sandstones that were deposited in deserts and have
a distinctive red colour. These are the classic Red-Bed copper ores. These deposits have high
metal/sulphide ratios making them particularly amenable to modern smelting where there are strict
controls on S pollution.

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Many mechanical accumulations of heavy minerals occur in beach and fluvial sandstones. These
deposits belong to the group called placer deposits.

Beach placers produce much of the worlds Ti, Zr, Th, Ce, and Y. they occur along the present day
beaches or ancient beaches where longshore drift is frequently well developed and frequent storms
occur.

Economic grades can be very low and sands running as low as 0.6% are mined off the eastern coast
of Australia.

The deposits always show topographic control, the shapes of bays and the position of headlands
often being very important; thus in exploring for buried orebodies a reconstruction of
paleogeography is available.

(iv.)Conglomerate hosts: Alluvial gravels and conglomerates are often important hosts of
recent and ancient placer orebodies. Alluvial gold bodies are often marked by 'white runs' of
vein quartz pebbles as in the white channels of the Yukon.

Most of the worlds gold is won from lithified white quartz pebble conglomerates of Precambrian
age in S.Africa. The large Witwatersrand conglomerates of S. Africa host Au and accessory U,
whereas in Blindriver Ontari, Canada. Only U is found.

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 (v.)Chemical sediment hosts: Sedimentary Fe and Mn formations occur scattered through the
stratigraphic column, where they form very extensive beds conformable with the
stratigraphy.

(b) Igneous Hosts:

(i) Volcanic hosts: There are two principal types of deposits to be found in volcanic rocks,
vesicular filling deposits and volcanic associated massive sulphides deposits. The first
deposit type is not very important but the second is widespread and important producer of
base metals often silver and gold as by products.

The first type forms in the vesicular (gas bubbles) and brecciated flow tops of basaltic lavas. The
mineralization is primarily native Cu as in the case of the Keweenawan Peninsula of northern
Michigan, or Coppermine River in NWT.

Volcanic associated massive sulphide deposits often consist of over 90% iron sulphide, usually as
pyrite, although pyrrhotite is well developed in some deposits.

They are generally stratiform bodies, lenticular to sheetlike developed at the interfaces between
volcanic units or at volcanic sedimentary interfaces.

They can be divided into 3-classes:

 Zn-Pb-Cu

 Zn-Cu

 Cu

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The most important host rock is rhyolite and P-bearing ores are only associated with this rock type.
The Cu-class is usually associated with basaltic lavas.

Massive sulphide deposits commonly occur in groups and in any one area they are found at one or a
restricted number of horizons in the succession. These horizons may represent changes from
volcanism to sedimentation, or simply a pause in volcanism.

There is a close association with volcaniclastic rocks and many orebodies overlie the explosive
products of rhyolite domes. These ore deposits are usually underlain by stockwork that may itself be
ore grade and which appears to have been the feeder channel up which mineralizing fluids
penetrated o form the overlying massive sulphide deposit.

(ii) Plutonic hosts: Many plutonic igneous intrusions possess rhythmic layering and this is
particularly well developed in some basic intrusions.

Usually the layering takes the form of alternating felsic and mafic minerals, but sometimes minerals
of economic interest such as chromite (Cr ore), magnetite (Fe, V, Ti ore) and ilmenite (Fe, Ti ore)
may form discrete mineable seams within such layered complexes. These seams are naturally
stratiform and may extend over many kms as in the Bushveld complex of S. Africa.

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Another form of plutonic deposit is the Ni-Cu sulphide ore body formed by the sinking of an
immiscible sulphide liquid to the bottom of a magma chamber containing ultrabasic or basic
magma. The sulphide usually accumulate in hollows in the base of the igneous body and generally
forms sheets or irregular lenses conformable with the overlying silicate rock e.g. Sudbury, Ontario,
Canada.

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 (c) Metamorphic host rocks:

Some ore deposits are simply metamorphosed equivalents of the deposits types discussed above.
The metamorphic and deformational process may concentrate the deposits into larger more
economic lodes.

(i)Residual Deposits: These are deposits formed by the removal of non ore from protoore.
For example the leaching of Si and alkalis from a nepheline syenite may leave behind a
capping of hydrous aluminium oxides (bauxite). Some residual bauxite occur at the present
surface, others have been buried under younger sediments to which they form conformable
basal beds.

Other examples include Fe and Ni bearing laterites which are hydrated oxides of Fe and
garnierites hydrated Ni silicates. These form in tropical climates from the weathering of
peridotite.

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 (ii)Supergene enrichment: this is a process which may affect most orebodies to some
degree.

After a deposit has formed, uplift and erosion may bring it within reach of circulating ground
waters which may leach some of the metals out of that section of the orebody above the
water table. These dissolved metals may be deposited in that part of the orebody lying
beneath the water table and this can lead to considerable enrichment in metal values.

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 Classification of Bauxite:

a). High level or upland bauxites: Generally occur on the volcanic or igneous sources rocks
forming thick blankets of up to 30m which cap plateaux in tropical to subtropical climates
e.g in the Deccan traps of India, southern Queensland, southern Ghana and Guniea. These
bauxite retain the original rock textures.

b). Low level peneplain-type bauxite: Occur at low levels along tropical coastlines e.g S.
America, Australia and Malaysia. They have pisolitic textures, are often boehmitic in
composition, are usually less than 9m thick, and are separated from the parent rock by
kaolinitic underclay.

c). Karst bauxite: These include amongst the oldest known bauxites (Devonian to mid
Miocene age) in the Mediterranean region. This group also includes those of Tertiary age in
Jamaica and Hispaniola. These bauxite overlie highly karstified limestone or dolomite

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 surfaces and are texturally quite variable. The west of Indian bauxite are gibbsitic ores with
a structureless earthy, sparsely concretionally texture. They have strong affinities with the
upland deposits. The European karst bauxite on the other hand are generally lithified and are
predominantly boehmitic ores (Boehmite – A greyish, brownish, or reddish orthorhombic
minerals AlO(OH). It is a major constituent of some bauxite and represents the gamma
phase dimorphous with diaspore). These are more reminiscent of peneplain deposits.

d). Transported or sedimentary bauxites: this is a small class of non-residual bauxites formed
by the erosion and redeposition of bauxitic minerals. (Gibbsite – a white or tinted
monoclinic mineral Al(OH)3 . Gibbsite is formed by weathering of igneous rocks and is the
principal constituent of bauxite, it occurs in mica-like crystals or in stalactitic and spheroidal
forms).

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