Mineral composition and characteristics of the marginal marine placer in the eastern Mozambique

As is known to all,the marginal marine placer is one of the most largest potential mineral resources in the world.This paper mainly studies on the mineral composition and characteristics of the marginal marine placer in the eastern Mozambique using the methods of optical microscope,X-ray diffractometer,scanning electron microscope and ICP-MS.In addition,by using the mathematical statistics,this paper discusses elements existing states and carrier minerals of the heavy placer. The research result shows as follows:(1) Ore minerals of the placer are ilmenite,rutile and zircon,gangue minerals are quartz and feldspar.(2) The main chemical composition of heavy placer is Ti and Zr,Hf and REE are minor components;Th and U,as the harmful element components,have no obviously environmental damage to mining-selection processing and product utilization because their total contents are very low.(3) The heavy placer shows a certain correlation between element contents and granularities of minerals in the heavy placer,that is,the carrier minerals containing Zr,Hf,U,Cr and Ta show a relatively fine grain-size while the carrier minerals containing Ti,Fe,V,and Nb show a relatively coarse grain-size.