The Economic Aspect of Geology Part 19

Nickel, while present in the average igneous rock in greater amounts than copper, lead, or zinc, is apparently not so readily concentrated in nature as the other metals and is rarely found in workable deposits. The few ore bodies known have been formed as the result of unusual segregation of the nickel in highly magnesian igneous rock of the norite or gabbro type, at the time of its solidification or soon after; and in some cases, in order to produce the nickel ore, still further concentration by the agency of weathering has been necessary. Thus there are two main types of deposits.

The first, the sulphide type, is represented by the great ore bodies of the Sudbury district. These are situated in the basal portions of a great norite intrusive, and are ascribed to segregation of the sulphides as the rock solidified. To some extent the segregation was aided by mineralizing solutions following the crystallization of the magma, but in general there is little evidence that the ores were deposited from vagrant solutions of this kind (see pp. 34-35). These ores owe their value to primary concentration; secondary transportation and reprecipitation by surface waters has not been important. A small amount of the green a.r.s.enate, annabergite or "nickel bloom," has been developed by oxidation at the surface.

The second, the garnierite or "lateritic" type of nickel ores, is somewhat more common and is represented by the deposits of New Caledonia. In this locality the original rock is a peridot.i.te, relatively low in nickel, which has been altered to serpentine.

Weathering has concentrated the more resistant nickel at the expense of the more soluble minerals, and has produced extensive blanket deposits of clay, which in their lower portions contain nickel in profitable amounts. Similar processes, working on material of a somewhat different original composition, have produced the nickel-bearing and chrome-bearing iron ores of Cuba (pp. 171-173).

TUNGSTEN (WOLFRAM) ORES

ECONOMIC FEATURES

The princ.i.p.al use of tungsten is in the making of high speed tool steels. It is added either as the powdered metal or in the form of ferrotungsten, an alloy containing 70 to 90 per cent of tungsten.

Tungsten is also used for filaments in incandescent lamps, and in contacts for internal combustion engines, being a subst.i.tute for platinum in the latter use. Of late years tungsten alloys have also been used in valves of airplane and automobile engines.

The average grade of tungsten ores mined in the United States is less than 3 per cent of the metal; before smelting they are concentrated to an average grade of 60 per cent tungsten oxide.

Germany through its smelting interests controlled the foreign tungsten situation prior to the war; two-thirds of its excess output of ferrotungsten was consumed by England and the balance princ.i.p.ally by the United States and France. Other consumers in the main satisfied their requirements by imports of tool steel from these four countries.

The bulk of the tungsten ore consumed in Europe prior to 1914 came from British possessions; these were princ.i.p.ally the Federated Malay States, Burma, Australia, and New Zealand. The United States, Portugal, Bolivia, j.a.pan, Siam, Argentina, and Peru were also producers. The great demand for tungsten created by the war added China to the list of important producers and greatly increased the production from Burma and Bolivia.

Smelting works were established in England and those of the United States and France were greatly enlarged. England is at present in a position to dominate the world tungsten situation. The question of control of the ores obtainable in China, Korea, Siam, Portugal, and western South America is likely to be an important one for the future.

Of the annual pre-war world production, the United States used about one-fifth. Three-fourths of this requirement was met by domestic production. The balance was obtained by importation, chiefly from Germany, from Portugal and Spain, and from England, both of concentrates and of ferrotungsten.

To the considerable demand for high speed tool steels occasioned by munitions manufacture, production in the United States responded quickly. Supplies of tungsten came chiefly from California, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and South Dakota. At the same time importation largely increased, chiefly from the west coast of South America and the Orient.

Consumption reached a half of the world's total. Considerable amounts of ferrotungsten were exported to the Allies.

The end of the war created a possible tungsten shortage in this country into a tungsten surplus. In so far as actual domestic consumption is concerned there has been a return to something like pre-war conditions, as the only known new use to which tungsten may be put--the manufacture of die steel--does not involve the use of any large amount of ferrotungsten. The richer mines of the two chief tungsten-producing districts in the United States have shown impoverishment and at present no important new deposits are known. The grade of the producing deposits is on an average low. The domestic production of tungsten ore will doubtless decrease, owing to the importation of cheaper foreign ores, unless a high tariff wall is erected. Importation from the Orient and the west coast of South America should continue in reduced amounts, depending upon the ability of domestic manufacturers to obtain and hold foreign markets for ferrotungsten and high speed tool steel. In the commercial control of tungsten ores the United States has at present a strong position, second only to that of England.

GEOLOGIC FEATURES

Tungsten ores contain tungsten princ.i.p.ally in the form of the minerals scheelite (calcium tungstate), ferberite (iron tungstate), hubnerite (manganese tungstate), and wolframite (iron-manganese tungstate). All these minerals are relatively insoluble and have high specific gravity, and as a consequence they are frequently acc.u.mulated in placers, along with ca.s.siterite and other stable, heavy minerals. A large part of the world's tungsten production in the past has been won from such deposits.

Placers are still important producers in China, Siam, and Bolivia, although in these countries vein deposits are also worked.

With the exhaustion of the more easily worked placer deposits, increasing amounts of tungsten are being obtained from the primary or fixed deposits. These are found almost exclusively in a.s.sociation with granitic rocks, and have a variety of forms. The most productive deposits are in the form of veins, cutting the granites and the surrounding rocks into which the granites were intruded, and containing quartz, metallic sulphides, and in some cases minerals of tin, gold, and silver. The deposits of the two most important districts in the United States, in Boulder County, Colorado, and at Atolia, California, are of this general nature. The close a.s.sociation of such deposits with plutonic igneous rocks, and the characteristic mineral a.s.sociations (see pp. 37-41) suggest strongly that the deposits were formed by hot solutions deriving their material from a magmatic source.

Other tungsten deposits, which only recently became of importance, are of the contact-metamorphic type--in limestones which have been invaded by hot aqueous and gaseous solutions near the borders of granitic intrusions. In these occurrences the tungsten mineral is almost invariably scheelite, and is a.s.sociated with calcite, garnet, pyroxene, and other silicates. A magmatic origin of the tungsten is probable. Some of the deposits of the Great Basin area and of j.a.pan are of this nature, and it is believed that important deposits of this type may be discovered in many other countries.

Tungsten is likewise found in original segregations in igneous rocks and in pegmat.i.te dikes, but these deposits are of comparatively small commercial importance.

In some tungsten deposits a hydrated oxide called tungst.i.te has been formed as a canary-yellow coating at the surface. On the whole, however, tungsten minerals are very resistant to weathering, and in all their deposits secondary concentration by chemical action at the surface has not played any appreciable part. The disappearance of tungsten minerals from alluvial materials which are undergoing laterization, which has been described in Burma,[32] seems to indicate that the tungsten is dissolved in surface waters to some extent; but in the main it is probably carried completely out of the vicinity and not reprecipitated below.

MOLYBDENUM ORES

ECONOMIC FEATURES

The main use of molybdenum is in the manufacture of high-speed tool steels, in which it has been used as a partial or complete subst.i.tute for tungsten. Its steel-hardening qualities are more effective than those of tungsten, but it is more difficult to control metallurgically.

It has been used in piston rods and crank shafts for American airplanes. Its use in tool steel is mainly confined to Europe, where its metallurgical application is in a more advanced stage than in the United States. Molybdenum is added to steel either as powdered molybdenum or in the form of ferromolybdenum, an alloy containing 60 to 70 per cent of the metal. Molybdenum chemicals are essential reagents in iron and steel a.n.a.lysis and other a.n.a.lytical work; they are also used as pigments.

Molybdenum metal has been used to a small extent in incandescent lamps and as a subst.i.tute for platinum in electric contacts and resistances.

Molybdenum ores range from considerably less than 1 per cent to about 5 per cent in molybdenum.

The world's princ.i.p.al sources of molybdenum ores in approximate order of importance are the United States, Canada, Norway, Australia, Korea, Austria, Peru, and Mexico.

About half of the world's supply is produced in the United States.

Production of molybdenum in this country practically began in 1914. Most of the production has come from Colorado and Arizona. It is believed that the United States contains reserves more than sufficient to meet any possible future demand. Thus far the demand has not kept up with capacity for production. The princ.i.p.al consuming countries are England, France, and Germany.

GEOLOGIC FEATURES

The chief ore minerals are molybdenite (molybdenum sulphide) and wulfenite (lead molybdate). The larger part of the world's production is from the molybdenite ores. Molybdenite occurs princ.i.p.ally in a.s.sociation with granitic rocks,--in pegmat.i.te dikes, in veins, and in contact-metamorphic deposits,--in all of which a.s.sociations its origin is traced to hot solutions from the magma. It is frequently present as an accessory mineral in sulphide deposits containing ores of gold, copper, silver, lead, and zinc. At Empire, Colorado, one of the princ.i.p.al producing localities, it is found in veins, a.s.sociated with pyrite, and filling the interstices between brecciated fragments of a wall rock composed of alaskite (an acid igneous rock). In molybdenite deposits secondary concentration has not been important.

Wulfenite is rather common in the upper oxidized zone of deposits which contain lead minerals and molybdenite. It is probably always secondary.

Deposits of wulfenite have been worked on a small scale in Arizona.

VANADIUM ORES

ECONOMIC FEATURES

Vanadium is used mainly in steel, to which it gives great toughness and torsional strength. Vanadium steels are used in locomotive tires, frames, and springs, in those parts of automobiles that must withstand special bending strains, in transmission shafts, and in general in forgings which must stand heavy wear and tear. Vanadium is also used in high-speed tool steels, its use materially reducing the amount of tungsten necessary. It is added in the form of ferrovanadium, carrying 35 to 40 per cent of vanadium. Another use of vanadium is in chrome-vanadium steels for armor-plate and automobiles. Minor amounts are used in making bronzes, in medicine, and in dyeing.

The low-grade ores of the United States range from 1 to 8 per cent of vanadium oxide, the general mean being nearer the lower figure. The high-grade ores of Peru contain from about 10 to as high as 50 per cent of the oxide; the roasted ore as shipped averages about 35 to 40 per cent.

Two-thirds of the world's supply of vanadium comes from Peru, where the mines are under American control. The concentrates are all shipped to the United States and some of the ferrovanadium is exported from this country to Europe. The Germans during the war supplied their needs for vanadium from the minette iron ores in the Briey district in France, and presumably the French will in the future utilize this source. An unrecorded but small quant.i.ty is obtained by the English from lead-vanadate mines in South Africa. There are some fairly large deposits of vanadium minerals in Asiatic Russia, which may ultimately become an important source.

The United States supplies less than one-half of its normal needs of vanadium, from southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. The grade of these deposits is low and the quant.i.ty in sight does not seem to promise a long future. Through its commercial control of the Peruvian deposits, the United States dominates the world's vanadium situation.

GEOLOGIC FEATURES

The Minasragra vanadium deposit of Peru contains patronite (vanadium sulphide) a.s.sociated with a peculiar nickel-bearing sulphide and a black carbonaceous mineral called "quisqueite," in a lens-shaped body of unknown depth, enclosed by red shales and porphyry dikes. The origin is unknown. The patronite has altered at the surface to red and brown hydrated vanadium oxides.

The deposits of Colorado and Utah are large lens-shaped bodies containing roscoelite (a vanadium-bearing mica) in fissures and brecciated zones and replacing the cementing materials of flat-lying sandstones. Locally the sandstones contain as much as 20 per cent of the roscoelite. The deposits contain small amounts of fossil wood which may have been an agent in the precipitation of the vanadium. There is considerable doubt as to their origin, but it is generally supposed that they represent concentrations by surface waters of minute quant.i.ties of material originally scattered through the surrounding sediments; it has also been suggested that certain igneous dikes in this region may have had some connection with the mineralization. Deposits of carnot.i.te, a pota.s.sium-uranium vanadate, which have been worked for their content of uranium and radium and from which vanadium has been obtained as a by-product, are found as impregnations of the sandstone in these same localities (p. 265).

There are other deposits containing small amounts of vanadium which are not at present available as ores. Vanadinite, a lead-vanadate, and descloizite, a vanadate of copper or lead, are found in the oxide zones of a number of lead and copper deposits in the southwestern United States and Mexico. t.i.taniferous iron ores, extensive deposits of which are known in many places, usually contain a small percentage of vanadium.

Outside of the Peruvian deposit, the affiliations of which are doubtful, the vanadium deposits of economic importance owe their positions and values mainly to the action of surface processes, rather than to igneous activity.

ZIRCONIUM ORES

ECONOMIC FEATURES