Geological setting and resources of the major rare-earth-element deposits in Australia

Jaireth, Subhash; Hoatson, Dean M.; Miezitis, Yanis

doi:10.1016/j.oregeorev.2014.02.008

Cited by 161 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…A notable exception concerns lateritic deposits developed over ultramafic-mafic rocks where Sc concentrations up to 100 ppm make it a potential by-product (Aiglsperger et al, 2016;Maulana et al, 2016). Recently, lateritic deposits with Sc concentrations high enough to mine as a primary product have been reported in Eastern Australia (Jaireth et al, 2014). Among these, the Syerston-Flemington deposit contains about 1350 t of Sc at an average concentration of 434 ppm Sc (Pursell, 2016), providing a century-long resource at the present levels of world consumption.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Scandium speciation in a world-class lateritic deposit

Chassé¹,

Griffin²,

O’Reilly³

et al. 2016

Geochem. Persp. Let.

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aerospace and automotive industries. In solid oxide fuel cells, the addition of Sc to the electrolyte improves conductivity and lowers the operating temperature, extending fuel cell life.Despite a crustal abundance of ca. 22 ppm (Rudnick and Gao, 2014), comparable to common elements such as copper or lead, current Sc production is limited to 10 t to 15 t per year (U.S. Geological Survey, 2016). The large ratio of ionic radius to charge of Sc 3+ hinders the concentration of scandium during most geochemical processes (Samson and Chassé, 2016). A notable exception concerns lateritic deposits developed over ultramafic-mafic rocks where Sc concentrations up to 100 ppm make it a potential by-product (Aiglsperger et al., 2016;Maulana et al., 2016). Recently, lateritic deposits with Sc concentrations high enough to mine as a primary product have been reported in Eastern Australia (Jaireth et al., 2014). Among these, the Syerston-Flemington deposit contains about 1350 t of Sc at an average concentration of 434 ppm Sc (Pursell, 2016), providing a century-long resource at the present levels of world consumption.We present the first data on Sc speciation in lateritic deposits by combining quantitative mineralogy, geochemical analysis and X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy on drill-core samples from the lateritic profile of the Syerston-Flemington deposit. The results explain the geochemical conditions required to form such exceptional Sc concentrations and improve our understanding of the geochemical behaviour of this under-explored element. Geological ContextIn Eastern Australia, lateritic profiles developed under seasonally dry humid tropical climatic conditions that resulted in intensive weathering during the Tertiary; the present occurrences are often erosional remnants of fossil laterite (Milnes et al., 1987). The Syerston-Flemington deposit (Fig. 1a and Table S-1) is part of the lateritic cover developed over the Tout complex, an ultramafic-mafic 'Alaskan-type' intrusive complex in the Lachlan Fold Belt (Johan et al., 1989). Scandium anomalies have been found over a body of nearly pure clinopyroxenite (Fig. S-1), with Sc concentrations (ca. 80 ppm; Table S-3) twice as high as those in typical mantle clinopyroxenites (Samson and Chassé, 2016). Similar concentrations (60 ppm to 80 ppm) occur in other 'Alaskan-type' clinopyroxenites (Burg et al., 2009) and in clinopyroxenes from ocean-island basalts (Dorais, 2015). This suggests the accumulation of clinopyroxene in subvolcanic feeder conduits during fractional crystallisation of a mantle-derived melt. Anomalies of Sc concentration in the parent rock result from specific conditions of formation and are not shared by all ultramafic-mafic bedrocks. Scandium (Sc) has unique properties, highly valued for many applications. Future supply is expected to rely on unusually high-grade (up to 1000 ppm) lateritic Sc ores discovered in Eastern Australia. To understand the origin of such exceptional concentrations, we investigated Sc speciation in one of these d...

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confidence: 99%

Scandium speciation in a world-class lateritic deposit

Chassé¹,

Griffin²,

O’Reilly³

et al. 2016

Geochem. Persp. Let.

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“…As is ap par ent from the re view of dif fer ent types of doc umented REE de pos its, the low est av er age REO (rare-earth oxides) grade ranges within 100-1000 ppm (Long et al, 2012;Jaireth et al, 2014;Goodenough et al, 2016), but the av er age REO con tent in most de pos its with proven re serves typ i cally exceeds the value of 1%. In sights from com par i son of Ta ble 2 and Ap pen dix 2 show that the max i mum con cen tra tion of REE in the cop per shale (SREE in the range of 140-230 ppm) only mar ginally ex ceeds the av er age con tent in the Earth's crust (140-150 ppm) and world shales (150-390 ppm; Ta ble 1).…”

Section: Interpretation and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Such flu ids can dis solve as lit tle as up to 4 ppb REE (Gieré, 1996;Jaireth et al, 2014), but chlo ride complexation and REE mo bil ity suf fi ciently in creases with in creas ing tem pera ture (Gam mons et al, 1996;Gieré, 1996;Migdisov et al, 2016). Al though weaker than other aque ous com plexes of REE, chlo ride spe cies, like REECl 2+ , can play a sig nif i cant role in REE trans port due to the con sid er able con cen tra tions of chlo ride in nat u ral so lu tions (Migdisov et al, 2016).…”

Section: Interpretation and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There fore, the Kupfer schiefer se ries, due to rel a tively low REE con cen tra tions com pared to doc u mented REE de pos its, does not seem to be a pro spec tive source, bar ring the ap pear ance of eco nomic need, par tic u larly in parts of the ox i dized ar eas, in which REE co ex ist spa tially with gold and PGE. The REE de pos its as so ci ated with black shale are ex tremely rare (Gieré, 1996;Long et al, 2012;Jaireth et al, 2014;Simandl, 2014), ex cept ing a few polymetallic black shales (Weng et al, 2015), phosphorite-bear ing shales (e.g., Cruse et al, 2000), black slates (Loukola --Ruskeeniemi and Lahtinen, 2013) or shales with IOCG hy drother mal min er ali sa tion (Simandl, 2014). REE in sev eral other shale-re lated polymetallic de pos its oc cur as ac com pa ny ing com mod i ties (e.g., Jiang et al, 2006;Zanin et al, 2010), however, there is lit tle in for ma tion about eco nomic util ity.…”

Section: Interpretation and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Controls on the distribution of rare earth elements in the Kupferschiefer series of SW Poland

Oszczepalski¹,

Chmielewski²,

Mikulski³

2016

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1 Pol ish Geo log i cal In sti tute -Na tional Re search In sti tute, Rakowiecka 4, 00-975 Warszawa, Po land Oszczepalski, S., Chmielewski, A., Mikulski, S.Z., 2016. Con trols on the dis tri bu tion of rare earth el e ments in the Kupferschiefer se ries of SW Po land. Geo log i cal Quar terly, 60 (4): 811-826, doi: 10.7306/gq.1325 This study deals with the spa tial dis tri bu tion and the PAAS-nor mal ized pat terns of rare earth el e ments (REE) stud ied by ICP-MS in the Kupferschiefer se ries of SW Po land. The most char ac ter is tic fea ture is a pro gres sive en rich ment in REE content (in clud ing Y and Sc) out ward from the rocks with py ritic and Pb-Zn min er al isa tion, across the rocks with cop per min er alisa tion, to wards the ox i dized (Rote Fäule) ar eas. The same trend can also be ob served with re spect to LREE, MREE and HREE. Whereas REE dis tri bu tion di a grams for shales with py rite and Pb-Zn min er al isa tion are al most flat, di a grams for shales with he ma tite and cop per min er al isa tion are con vex-up ward and the stron gest con vex ity is at trib uted to the tran si tion from hematitic al ter ation to cop per-rich rocks. REE dis tri bu tion di a grams nor mal ized to PAAS show strong MREE en richment rel a tive to LREE and HREE, which is typ i cally the high est in the he ma tite zone, lower in shale with cop per min er al isation, and the low est in shales with Pb-Zn and py rite min er al isa tion. The sys tem atic in crease in the con cen tra tion of REE to wards the Rote Fäule, and the strong en rich ment in MREE in the tran si tion zone are in dic a tive of vari able in ten sity of leaching and for ma tion of the REE en rich ments (in clud ing MREE) by MREE>HREE>LREE flu ids, as ev i denced by the MREE-enriched sig na tures. Over print ing of sec ond ary en rich ments over the orig i nal REE pat tern due to re dis tri bu tion along the path ways of ex pand ing flu ids are pos tu lated to ac count for the ap par ent dif fer ences in the dis tri bu tion and con cen tra tion of REE (in clud ing the MREE-en riched trend) be tween the ox i dized rocks, cop per-bear ing rocks, and re duced lithologies bar ren in cop per.

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“…A lack of Ce anomalies in the Cyprus soils related to precipitation of Ce 4+ species in strongly oxidizing conditions (Jaireth et al, 2014) further indicates a significant proportion of the REEs are hosted in chemically resistate phases which contributes to retention of primary lithological patterns in the weathered environment (Linnen et al, 2014). Yet, the high ar-/tot-ratio for most REEs would indicate a significant source of REEs to be unstable primary phases (e.g.…”

Section: Regolith and Landform Controls On Ree Distributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%