46-7 Critical Mineral Resource in Heavy Mineral Beach-Placer Sandstone Deposits in New Mexico

Session: Research to Accelerate Recovery of Critical Minerals from Primary and Secondary Resources

Presenting Author:

Matt Powell

Authors:

Powell, Matt¹, Xu, Guangping², Huang, Shichun³, Duggan, Brian⁴, Alexander, Benjamin⁵, Wang, Ping⁶, McLemore, Virginia T.⁷, Owen, Evan⁸, Wei, Shuya⁹

(1) Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA, (2) Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, NM, USA, (3) University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, USA, (4) University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Knoxville, USA, (5) University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Knoxville, USA, (6) University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Knoxville,, Knoxville, USA, (7) Bureau of Geology, Socorro, NM, USA, (8) New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, Socorro, USA, (9) University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA,

Abstract:

The demand for critical minerals (CMs) could grow over 450% by 2050. As larger and economical mines will be soon exhausted, smaller deposits, such as placer deposits, provide alternate important resources. Beach-placer sandstone deposits are accumulations of heavy and resistant minerals formed by gravity separation during sedimentary processes on upper regions of beaches or in the long-shore bars in a marginal-marine environment ^[1]. The heavy minerals in beach-placer sandstone contain high concentrations of important CMs, such as titanium, zirconium, and rare earth elements (REEs). Heavy mineral deposits have several advantages over other types of mineral deposits: 1) beneficiation process is relatively simple, only requiring density separation, and 2) remediation is also relatively simple because corresponding restoration methods are also physical.

In this work, we focused on the Cretaceous beach-placer sandstone from Farr Ranch (Star Lake) in San Juan Basin, New Mexico ^[1]. The sandstone deposit is layered in mineral compositions alternating from dominantly quartz and feldspar with almost no zircon to ilmenite + anatase rich layer with abundant zircon. The main heavy minerals present are zircon, ilmenite, hematite, anatase and monazite. These mineralogy variations are accompanied by different concentrations of CMs. For example, the ilmenite and anatase rich layer have total REE ~2.85% whereas the quartz and feldspar layer has less than 0.2%. Due to their similarly high densities, zircon, ilmenite, anatase and hematite are also concentrated, leading to high concentration of CMs other than REEs, such as 1.2% Ni and 0.7% Zr.

 

The CM distributions in sandstone were mapped using laser ablation - inductively coupled plasma - mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) with a NWR193 laser unit connected to a Thermo Scientific TQ ICP-MS, and raw count rates were converted to concentration information using measurements of USGS standard samples. The chemical compositions of minerals were further determined using LA-ICP-MS under spot mode. As expected, there are large element variations on the ablated sample surface because different minerals are rich in different sets of CMs. This information will guide the leaching and recovery strategy.

 

Reference:

[1] V. McLemore 2010, https://doi.org/10.56577/FFC-61.197

SNL is managed and operated by NTESS under DOE NNSA contract DE-NA0003525. This project is supported by DOE DE-FE0032051. SAND2024-02356A

 

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-11007

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