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Document Type

Book Chapter

Department/Program

Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Editors

C.R. Berquist, Jr.

Publication Date

1990

Book Title

Heavy Mineral Studies - Virginia Inner Continental Shelf

Publisher

Virginia Division Of Mineral Resources

City

Charlottesville,VA

Volume

Publication 103

Abstract

Supplies of placer heavy minerals, such as ilmenite, rutile, zircon, and monazite, are anticipated to be in short supply by early in the next century. The depletion of conventional onshore deposits coupled with the declaration of the Exclusive Economic Zone in 1983 have provided the impetus to assess the resource potential of heavy-mineral concentrations in U.S. Continental Shelf sediments as future sources for these mineral commodities.

Mineralogically imprecise assessments of placer resources result from analyses of concentrates derived from small volume samples because of the particle-sparsity effect. The overall low grade of heavy minerals in Atlantic Continental Shelf sediments require the analysis of mineral concentrates from large volumes of bulk sample. A set of procedures to extract and analyze heavy minerals from large-volume samples is presented.

A Procedure for Assessing Heavy Mineral Resources Potential


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