Mineral Deposit On The Sea Floor

The degree of concentration is called the grade of a mineral deposit.

Mineral deposit on the sea floor. By comparison ancient volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits on land can contain resources of 150 million tonnes. Examples of precipitating. These are concretions of metallic minerals that occur under the ocean. Seafloor massive sulfide deposits or sms deposits are modern equivalents of ancient volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits or vms deposits.

Currently proposed sea floor mining ideas are essentially super. A study recently completed at the university of helsinki indicates that there are large numbers of mineral concretions containing valuable metals on the seafloor of finnish marine areas holding both commercial and conservational value. Examples of concentrating and transporting agents are groundwater seawater and magma. Deep sea mining is a mineral retrieval process that takes place on the ocean floor ocean mining sites are usually around large areas of polymetallic nodules or active and extinct hydrothermal vents at 1 400 to 3 700 metres 4 600 to 12 100 ft below the ocean s surface.

One special mineral deposit is called polymetallic nodules. Hydrothermal solutions discharge as density stratified metal rich brines and precipitate metalliferous sediments in basins along the spreading axis. For example iron was deposited in layers on the then sea floor billions of years. The first hydrothermal mineral deposit was found in the 1960s in the northern red sea where sea floor spreading separates africa from the saudi arabian peninsula.

The nodules grow sort of like stalactites do in a cave over time layers of metallic minerals precipitate out of seawater and add to the nodule. Pacific ocean pacific ocean deep sea minerals. Sms deposits were first recognized during the exploration of the deep oceans and the mid ocean ridge spreading centers in the early 1960s. Sea floor mineral deposits common in northern baltic sea.

The vents create globular or massive sulfide deposits which contain valuable metals such as silver gold copper. Mineral deposit mineral deposit formation of mineral deposits. Mineral deposits form because some medium serves as a concentrating and transporting agent for the ore minerals and some process subsequently causes the transporting agent to precipitate or deposit the minerals. The solwara 1 seafloor massive sulfide deposit off papua new guinea is relatively small with an inferred total mineral resource of 1 4 million tonnes at a grade of 8 cu and 6 g t au.

An ore deposit is a mineral deposit which has high enough grades of metal that makes it economic to mine. In the 1970s and 80s it was hoped that mining the nodules which contain quantities of manganese iron copper nickel titanium and cobalt as well as small traces of. Metal bearing deposits on the deep sea floor consisting of nodules crusts and accumulations of metallic sulfides from deep vents are of potential economic interest.