Platinum-Group Element ExplorationThe platinum-group elements (PGE) include platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium. They are currently receiving world-wide attention as an attractive exploration target because they offer the dual attraction of rare, high value precious metals as well as major industrial applications. Platinum has aesthetic qualities, combined with a permanent lustre, which encourage its use in the manufacture of jewellery and, like gold, it also finds an investment role. Platinum, rhodium and palladium have important applications as catalysts, enabling petroleum and other fuels and chemicals to be produced efficiently from crude oil. This book gives a practical set of guidelines for implementing a programme of PGE exploration, detecting subtle indications of mineralization and assessing the economic potential of a group of mafic or ultramafic rocks. Background material is given on the economic and geological framework of the PGE in the first chapter, while theoretical aspects of magma chemistry are covered in the next three. Chapters 5 and 6 review current world-wide exploration activity within the context of available reserves of PGE, and in Chapter 7 factors which need to be considered in exploration for new deposits are outlined. The last chapter discusses evaluation guidelines.As the PGE are both costly and almost indestructible they are normally recycled; nevertheless, a substantial annual input of new metal is needed to replace process losses, to permit increases in capacity in the dependent industries and to provide for new uses. For example, a major new market for platinum will be created if the European Community countries are required to fit catalytic converters to new cars. At present, South Africa and the USSR are the sources of most of the western world's newly mined PGE, with virtually all the South African production derived from the Bushveld Complex. Much of the material presented in this book is based on the author's experience of these rocks, and emphasis is given to the dominant role played by magmatic sulphides as potent collectors of PGE. Consumers of minerals and metals, however, prefer to have a diversity of supply and a new PGE producer is therefore likely to attract a ready market.Not only does the book provide a wealth of practical information for mining geologists, it also contains much of interest to those in natural resource management and investment. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
alloys analyses associated augite banded ironstone basal borehole Bushveld Complex Ca-poor pyroxene Ca-rich pyroxene chromite chromitite chromitite layer composition concentration contamination copper country rocks Crystal Lake Intrusion cumulate dolomite Dufek established exsolution exsolved field of sulphur floor rocks footwall fractionation fugacity of log g/tonne gabbro Geol geological gold grade horizon Hornfels hypersthene immiscible immiscible sulphide phase Impala Platinum indicated iridium iron isotope komatiitic Lac des Iles layered intrusions levels located mafic mafic and ultramafic mafic rocks magma magnetite Merensky Reef metal microprobe million tonnes mining Naldrett nickel sulphide norites normally olivine osmium oxygen fugacity pegmatoid PGE exploration PGE mineralization PGE values pigeonite plagioclase platinum and palladium platinum-group elements Platreef plotted Potgietersrus production pyroxene pyroxene pairs pyroxenite rhodium Rustenburg samples sediments silicate silicate melt Stillwater sulphide sulphide mineralization sulphur fugacity sulphur saturation sulphur solubility temperature tholeiitic Tulameen Turfspruit Tweefontein ultramafic rocks Upper Zone Zwartfontein