Musonoi mine

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Musonoi mine
General information about the mine
Cuprosklodowskite-Guilleminite-181021.jpg
Radial tufts of cuprosklodovskite approx. 1 cm in size, covered with yellow guilleminite from the Musonoi mine
Mining technology Open pit
Information about the mining company
Start of operation 1940
End of operation 1988
Funded raw materials
Degradation of Copper-cobalt-manganese-uranium deposit, rich in palladium and selenium
Geographical location
Coordinates 10 ° 42 '39.2 "  S , 25 ° 23' 56.5"  E Coordinates: 10 ° 42 '39.2 "  S , 25 ° 23' 56.5"  E
Musonoi Mine (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Musonoi mine
Location Musonoi Mine
Location Musonoi
province Lualaba
Country Democratic Republic of Congo

The Musonoi Mine was an open pit mine in the copper belt 2 km northwest of the city of Kolwezi in the province of Lualaba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo . The open pit is particularly known for its variety of secondary uranium minerals , as well as for its richness in selenium and palladium . The deposit has been mined since the 1940s and has been depleted since 1988.

geology

The Kolwezi region contains more than 50% of the cobalt and copper of the entire former Katanga province . The extent of the ore body is about 25 × 12 km. It consists of layers of torbernite (Cu (UO 2 ) 2 (PO 4 ) 2 · 10-12H 2 O), digenite (Cu 9 S 5 ), bornite (Cu 5 FeS 4 ), chalcopyrite (CuFeS 2 ) and carrollite ( Cu (Co, Ni) 2 S 4 ) under a green oxidation zone. The lower ore body consists of silicate dolomite on red sandstone . The upper ore body consists of dolomitic shale .

Type localities

The Musonoi mine produced seven minerals, which have their type locality here:

Of these minerals, derriksite is the only one known exclusively from Musonoi.

Other minerals

By metasomatic transformations the next musonoi mine's copper and cobalt especially rich in uranium , vanadium , selenium , lead , chromium and molybdenum . Therefore selenium-rich digenites (Cu 9 S 5 ), selenium-rich covellins (CuS), copper- and palladium- rich trogtalites (CoSe 2 ), oosterboschites and verbeekites have been found in Musonoi .

A total of 62 minerals were found in Musonoi. These include the classical copper minerals such as chalcocite (Cu 2 S), chrysocolla (Cu 2-x Al x (H 2-x Si 2 O 5 ) (OH) 4 · nH 2 O (x <1)) , Malachite (Cu 2 (CO 3 ) (OH) 2 ) or torbernite (Cu (UO 2 ) 2 (PO 4 ) 2 · 12H 2 O). However, less widespread minerals such as berzelianite (Cu 2 Se), cobaltomenite (CoSeO 3 · 2H 2 O), merenskyite (PdTe 2 ), mottramite (Pb (Cu, Zn) [OH | VO 4 ]), Palladite (Pd 17 Se 15 ), the very rare pseudojohannite (Cu 6.5 (UO 2 ) 8 (SO 4 ) 4 O 8 (OH) 5 · 25H 2 O) (new description 2006), roubaultite (Cu 2 (UO 2 ) 3 (OH) 10 · 5H 2 O), Sengierite (Cu 2 (UO 2 ) 2 V 2 O 8 · 6H 2 O) and very good levels of Vandenbrandeit (Cu (UO 2 ) (OH) 4 ) found.

Web links

Commons : Musonoi Mine  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ VDC Daltry: The type mineralogy of Africa: Zaire , In: Annales de la Société Géologique de Belgique. T. 115 (fascicule 1) 1992, pp. 33-62 ( PDF 2.2 MB ; p. 3)
  2. ^ Musonoi in the Mineralienatlas
  3. ↑ Peter Laznicka: Giant Metallic Deposits: Future Sources of Industrial Metals. Springer, Heidelberg 2010, p. 442. ( available online in the Google book search)
  4. ↑ a b Musonoi Mine on Mindat
  5. ↑ Cassian Pirard, Frédéric Hatert, The Sulfides and Selenides Of The Musonoï Mine, Kolwezi, Katanga, Democratic Republic of Congo, In: The Canadian Mineralogist, 2008, Vol. 46, pp. 219-231 (2008) doi : 10.3749 / canmin .46.1.219