Black sand deposits; their spatial distribution and hazards along the northern coast of Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

Aziz, Akram; Sief, Rehab; Ghieth, B.M.; Kaiser, Mona F.

doi:10.1016/j.jappgeo.2020.104219

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…S9) reveal that the Th oxide content varies from 10.14 to 12.67, with a mean of 11.23, while the U oxide content ranges between 1.77 and 2.67%, averaging 2.15%. The high Th content along the El-Arish beach is due to its high monazite content, containing 7.92% ThO 2 60 – 62 . The mineralogical concentration data shows the enrichment of monazite over thorite; thus, the radioactivity of the studied area is related to monazite rather than thorite.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Separation, reserve estimation and radioactivity responsibility of the economic heavy minerals of East El- Arish black sand, North Sinai, Egypt

Mezayen

Alfi

Ali

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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Multi-heavy mineral separation techniques like density, magnetic, and electromagnetic techniques are followed by picking, grain counting, and mineralogical examinations conducted with an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM). These techniques have been applied to several drill hole (well) composite samples representing beach sand and dunes of East El-Arish area, North Sinai, Egypt. The results explain the remarkable enrichment in total heavy minerals (THM) of beach sand (4.4%) compared to sand dunes (2.6%): this is due to the natural concentration of the currents of the Mediterranean Sea. After characterizing the heavy minerals in terms of the abundance of each mineral species, the mean values of content relative to total economic heavy minerals (TEHM) were determined as 70.03% ilmenite, 3.81% leucoxene, 3.03% magnetite, 8.7% garnet, 10.6% zircon, 3.13% rutile, 0.37% monazite, and 0.31% titanite in the sand dune samples. The total economic heavy minerals in the beach samples were 64.08% ilmenite, 1.6% leucoxene, 2.84% magnetite, 18.16% garnet, 10.4% zircon, 2.18% rutile, 0.61% monazite, and 0.13% titanite. Monazite, thorite, zircon, and apatite are the main radioactive minerals in the study area. The combination of two specific characteristics of the studied monazite (relatively high Th-U content and high frequency) makes monazite the main contributor to radioactivity of the study area.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Separation, reserve estimation and radioactivity responsibility of the economic heavy minerals of East El- Arish black sand, North Sinai, Egypt

Mezayen

Alfi

Ali

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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“…Gold deposits occur either as stratabound formed due to exhalative hydrothermal processes during the last stages of sub-marine volcanic activity in island arcs 8 , 9 , vein-type 10 , 11 , disseminated –type in altered rocks 12 or as placers 13 . The main uranium occurrences are found in shear zones in the Pan-African late orogenic granite and related rocks 14 , alkaline dykes and sills 15 , Phanerozoic sedimentary rocks 16 , 17 and beach placers of the black sand 18 . However, due to their considerable chemical favorability for infiltration by hydrothermal fluids, carbonate rocks are a well-known host for various types of hydrothermal alteration and metasomatism-related mineralization including gold 19 – 21 , uranium 22 – 25 , and rare earth elements 26 , 27 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiscale (microscopic to remote sensing) preliminary exploration of auriferous-uraniferous marbles: A case study from the Egyptian Nubian Shield

Shebl

Hamdy

2023

Sci Rep

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Since their recent first record within the Egyptian Nubian Shield, auriferous and uraniferous marbles (Au = 0.98–2.76 g/t; U = 133–640 g/t) have rarely been addressed, despite not only their probable economic importance but also the fact that it is a new genetic style of gold and uranium mineralization in the Nubian Shield rocks. This is mainly attributed to the inadequate localization of these marbles within harsh terrains, as well as the cost and time spent with conventional fieldwork for their identification compared to the main lithological components of the Nubian Shield. On the contrary, remote sensing and machine learning techniques save time and effort while introducing reliable feature identification with reasonable accuracy. Consequently, the current research is an attempt to apply the well-known machine learning algorithm (Support vector Machine—SVM) over Sentinel 2 remote sensing data (with a spatial resolution of up to 10 m) to delineate the distribution of auriferous-uraniferous marbles in the Barramiya-Daghbagh district (Eastern Desert of Egypt), as a case study from the Nubian Shield. Towards better results, marbles were accurately distinguished utilizing ALOS PRISM (2.5 m) pan-sharpened Sentinel 2 data and well-known exposures during fieldwork. With an overall accuracy of more than 90%, a thematic map for auriferous-uraniferous marbles and the major rock units in the Barramiya-Daghbagh district was produced. Marbles are spatially related to ophiolitic serpentinite rocks, as consistent with their genesis within the Neoproterozoic oceanic lithosphere. Field and petrographic investigations have confirmed the newly detected Au and U-bearing zones (impure calcitic to impure dolomitic marbles in Wadi Al Barramiya and Wadi Daghbagh areas and impure calcitic marble in Gebel El-Rukham area). Additionally, X-ray diffraction (XRD), back-scattered electron images (BSEIs), and Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) results were integrated to verify our remote sensing results and petrographic investigations. Different times of mineralization are indicated, ranging from syn-metamorphism (gold in Wadi Al Barramiya and Gebel El-Rukham) to post-metamorphism (gold in Wadi Daghbagh and uranium in all locations). Based on the application of geological, mineralogical, machine learning and remote sensing results for the construction of a preliminary exploration model of the auriferous-uraniferous marble in the Egyptian Nubian Shield, we recommend a detailed exploration of Au and U-bearing zones in Barramiya-Dghbagh district and applying the adopted approach to other districts of similar geological environments.

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“…Black sand deposits are formed due to the erosion of some of the igneous and metamorphic rocks in the Southern part of Sudan and the Ethiopian Plateau (Pettijohn et al 1987). They are transported through the River Nile to settle along the Nile Delta coastal zones and the northern coast of Sinai (Aziz et al 2020). It was noticed that the black sand deposits contain significant concentrations of natural radioisotopes which are called naturally occurring radioactive materials (El-Naggar 1999; El-Khatib et al 1993).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk assessment of radioactive hazards associated with black sand upgrading processes

Mohamed

Hassan

Ismail

et al. 2023

Applied Earth Science: Transactions of the Institutions of Mini

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Black sands represent a good source of economic minerals with various industrial applications. However, their radioactive properties may prevent their use in specific applications. In this study, zircon, ilmenite, magnetite, and rutile are four minerals represent more than 75% of the black sand content, were selected to evaluate their Intrinsic radiological properties. The chemical composition of these minerals was determined along with their density and particle size. Then, the activity concentrations of the naturally occurring radioactive nuclides were experimentally determined and the most important radiological hazard indices were calculated. The results indicated that the upgrading process concentrates the natural radioisotopes in some minerals like the zircon and rutile leaving the magnetite and ilmenite with lower content than permissible limits. Moreover, the risk analysis identified the dangerous conditions and situations and suggest possible solutions to reduce these hazardous situations to a minimum and to keep a safe environment for the workers.

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Black sand deposits; their spatial distribution and hazards along the northern coast of Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

Cited by 11 publications

References 12 publications

Separation, reserve estimation and radioactivity responsibility of the economic heavy minerals of East El- Arish black sand, North Sinai, Egypt

Separation, reserve estimation and radioactivity responsibility of the economic heavy minerals of East El- Arish black sand, North Sinai, Egypt

Multiscale (microscopic to remote sensing) preliminary exploration of auriferous-uraniferous marbles: A case study from the Egyptian Nubian Shield

Risk assessment of radioactive hazards associated with black sand upgrading processes

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