13 1.

3 The geology of ore deposits

10

10
M
tN
i
1
Ni grade (wt %)

Wor ld
0.1 class

10
00
0
tN
i
0.01
0.1 1 10 100 1000
Ore production and reserves (Mt)

60
40
50
World
Number of deposits in class

Contained Ni (Mt) in class

class
40 30

30
20

20
10
10

0 0
< 1000 t 1000– 104– 105– 1– > 10 Mt
10 000 t 105 t 1 Mt 10 Mt
Deposit size by contained Ni
Figure 1.7 Above: Grade–tonnage plot of 136 worldwide known economic and potentially
economic sulfide Ni deposits (see Section 2.3). The oblique dashed lines delineate total
contained Ni. Data from the Geological Survey of Canada reported in Eckstrand and Hulbert
(2007). Note that the quoted tonnage and grade of any deposit is based on cut-off grades,
and may change somewhat with exploration and changing economics. Below: Number of
deposits in different size categories as measured by contained Ni, and total contained Ni
in each size class. The cut-off for world-class deposits is shown, i.e. the top 10% of deposits
by contained metal.

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14 What is an ore deposit?

The second role that deposit size plays is that the rare abnormally large deposits can be
overwhelmingly important for the world’s supply of a metal. For the 136 deposits plotted
in Figure 1.7, 45% of the total nickel is in the two largest deposits. World-class deposits
have been defined as those in the top 10% of any category with respect to metal contained.
For many commodities this small number of world-class deposits contain between 60 and
90% of global resources, in the case of Ni about 85% (Figure 1.7). World-class deposits
are thus critical both for global supply and for the financial health of major mining
companies, as ownership provides a reliable long-term revenue stream.

Geological factors affecting economics of ore extraction

In addition to ore deposit grade and size there are other factors, both geological and
societal, that affect whether an ore deposit is mined, and the cost of extracting a
commodity will vary somewhat from deposit to deposit. The role of an ore deposit
geologist is as much to describe and evaluate the geological factors that control the costs
of extraction of a commodity as it is to find ore. One consideration in the economics of
mining is the amount of waste rock that is required to be mined in order to access the ore
bodies. Geological factors that affect economics include:
 Shape and depth of the deposit. Per tonne of rock mined, the cheapest ore body to mine is a
flat-lying body at the Earth’s surface. It is generally cheaper to mine an ore body that has an
overall sub-spherical shape than a thin vein. Similarly, per tonne of rock mined, open-pit
mining is cheaper than underground mining. However, in order to access ore, a higher ratio
of waste rock to ore (stripping ratio) will generally be mined from an open-pit than from
an underground operation, and the relative costs of the two methods of mining reverse for
the deeper parts of many ore bodies (Figure 1.2) and for deeply buried ore bodies.
 Mineralogy and texture of the ore. These factors affect the cost of mining, the costs of
crushing and milling of ore, and the cost of metallurgical extraction of a metal from ore
minerals. In some cases we need to consider also the presence of deleterious elements
and the costs of removing these from the ore before processing, for instance, phos-
phorus in iron ores.
 The presence of multiple extractable products. We distinguish co-products, as those
additional products which control the economic feasibility of a mine, and by-products,
which are extracted from mined and milled ore or waste if the costs of metallurgical
extraction are favourable, but which do not significantly affect the economics of the whole
mining operation. The distinction between these two categories is often arbitrary, but many
mines produce multiple commodities, and some metals which are only extracted for
specialist small-volume markets are extracted entirely as by-products (e.g. Sc, Te).

1.4 Ore deposit geology as a science: classifications and

deposit models
................................................................................
Ore deposit geology or economic geology is the science behind the discovery and
evaluation of mineral resources. One of the long-term research aims of ore deposit
geologists is to understand the genesis and formation of ores in the geological history
of the Earth sufficiently well to predict the locations and nature of deposits.

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15 1.4 Ore deposit geology as a science: classifications and deposit models

Economics does not care what geological processes were involved in the formation of
the natural geochemical anomalies that are ore. The processes of ore formation can be
magmatic, metamorphic, sedimentary or hydrogeological. The processes can occur in the
mantle, in the crust, at the Earth’s surface; they can be affected by tectonic setting,
climate, etc…. Ore deposit geology is thus concerned with, and builds on, all parts of
geology.

Classifications of ore deposits

There are many thousands of known ore deposits. In view of this large number, we need a
scheme of categorisation into ore deposit types. Categorisation both simplifies the process
of developing understanding and allows estimation of statistical measures of ore deposit
spatial distribution, ore grade and ore tonnages, which can be input into estimates of total
resources in a given region and used in strategic planning. The description of the common
and typical characteristics of ore deposit types is an integral part of this book.
The classification of ore deposits into types or classes is based on combinations of their
characteristics, including which economically extractable commodity or commodities
they contain; the nature of their ore, and whether the ore occurs in veins, lodes, or is
disseminated through large masses of rock; their mineralogy; their host-rocks; and their
geological settings. The number of ore deposit types is not fixed. Different classification
schemes divide and combine in different ways. The current scheme of the Canadian
Geological Survey, for instance, recognises 85 types of metal ores. Different classification
schemes of ore deposits are based on different features as the primary attribute for
categorisation. None is perfect. Commonly used attributes are:
 element or mineral extracted, e.g. Cu, Au, Fe etc;
 host-rock type, e.g. large ultramafic–mafic intrusive bodies, carbonate-bearing sedi-
mentary rocks;
 tectonic setting and/or geological age, e.g. back-arc basin, intracratonic sedimentary
basin, Proterozoic intracratonic basins;
 major genetic process of enrichment, e.g. magmatic processes, sedimentary processes.
This book is structured around the last of these methods. The chapters are divided so as to
describe ore deposits that form in the following situations:
 magmatic – concentration as a result of chemical and mineralogical processes in
magmas;
 hydrothermal – concentration as a result of precipitation from heated aqueous fluids
migrating through crustal rocks;
 sedimentary – concentration by mechanical or chemical processes at the time of
sedimentation;
 regolith – enrichment as a result of weathering processes.

Ore deposit types and models

Over time, ore deposit types defined by empirical observations have become ore genetic
types as a result of research, geological observations and interpretation of the geological
processes of their formation. Ore deposit types are thus ore genetic ‘models’.

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