Rare-earth occurrences in the Pea Ridge tailings

Book · Fri Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1993

OSTI ID:6120964

Vierrether, C W; Cornell, W I

Tailings from the Pea Ridge iron mine contain significant amounts of apatite, which has rare-earth element values associated with it. In association with the recovery of rare-earth minerals as a secondary resource, the US Bureau of Mines conducted an investigation on the recoverability of the rare-earth minerals from the tailings. The mill tailings were subjected to a phosphate flotation to separate the apatite from other constituents. More than 70-pct recovery of the rare-earth values was achieved. Based on mineralogical characterization and prior analysis of rare-earth-bearing breccia pipe material at Pea Ridge, it is proposed that processing this phosphate concentrate on a vanner table would yield up to a 95-pct recovery of the rare earths in the concentrate, with the apatite reporting to the tailings. Intensive ore microscopy studies of the original tailings to the flotation products led to the identification of monazite, xenotime, and rare-earth-enriched apatite as the major rare-earth-bearing minerals in the tailings.

• OSTI ID: 6120964
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
580000* -- Geosciences
ABUNDANCE
APATITES
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
CHEMISTRY
ELEMENT ABUNDANCE
ELEMENTS
FLOTATION
GEOCHEMISTRY
IRON ORES
MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS RECOVERY
METALS
MILL TAILINGS
MINERALS
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
ORE PROCESSING
ORES
PHOSPHATE MINERALS
PROCESSING
RARE EARTHS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SOLID WASTES
TAILINGS
US BUREAU OF MINES
US DOI
US ORGANIZATIONS
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE PROCESSING
WASTES