PALEOPLACER

NAME : PATEL KARNAV M.

M.SC SEM-3
GUIDED BY :Dr. SOLANKI SIR
PAPER : GEL 501
ROLL NO : O7
  CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• DEFINITION
• MODE OF OCCURRENCE
• WORLD OCCURRENCE
• INDIA OCCURRENCE
• USES
• CONCLUSION
 INTRODUCTION
• Hails in 1976 defined placer as the surficial mineral deposists formed by mechanical
concentration.
• Placer deposits, or simply “placers”, are accumulations of valuable minerals concentrated
in overburden, in stream sediments or in beach materials by natural processes.
• Placer deposits are formed in two stages:
1. weathering and transportation and
2. concentration - by high specific gravity.
- chemical resistance to weathering of mineral.
- durability.
  TYPES OF PLACER DEPOSISTS
• Elluvial - Formal site of destructuon.
• Delluvial - Formal down hill.
• Prolluvial - Accumulation format foot of a slope.
• Alluvial - Placer carried out by rivers of streams.
• Beach - Formed along shores by waves and currents.
• Aeolian - By activity of wind.
• Glacial - By activities of glacier.
• Paleoplacer/fossilplacer - Those placer deposits buried under younger
rocks.
 Placer deposits supply a considerable fraction of the world's
production of tin, titanium, gold, platinum, diamond, corrundun etc.
 Potential economic minerals may include native gold, electrum,
platinum group minerals, diamond, ilmenite, rutile, zircon, cassiterite,
wolframite, scheelite, monazite, apatite, uraninite, thorian.
  DEFINITION.
• Most of the placer deposits being mined today are Cenezoic
or younger and occur in unconsolidated materials.
• The horst rock is mainly quartz pebble conglomerate.
• However, some ancient placers, or “paleo-placers”, are found
in sedimentary rocks as old as Precambrian in age. In fact, some
paleo-placers which are eroded become the source of present day
placer deposits.
• Paleopalcer also known as fossil placer and yeild maximum gold
and uranium deposits.
• Example:
1. Witwatersrand, South Africa, a major gold producer - Fossil
placers.
2. California Gold Rush: was after placer gold, Mother Lode was
discovered by tracing gold in the upstream direction.
 MODE OF OCCURRENCE
• The host rock in Palaeoplacer deposits is quartz pebble
conglomerate, a rock containing rounded grains of pure quartz .
SOURCE MATERIALS
• Commercial lode deposists: such as gold veins.
• Non commercial lodes.
• Sparsely disseminated ore mineral.
• Rock forming minerals.
 DEPOSITIONAL SITES:
• Waterfalls.
• Potholes.
• Confluence of tributaries with main streams.
• Point bars of meandering streams (in the mature stage).
 PLACER LOCATION.
1) Behind rock bars
2) In rock holes
3) Below waterfalls
4) Inside meander
loops
5) Downstream from
a tributary
6) Behind
undulations on ocean
floor
7) Riffles
8) Tributary into main
stream
 WITWATERSRAND BASIN
• The Witwatersrand Basin is a largely underground geological formation
which surfaces in the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
• It holds the world's largest known gold reserves and has produced over
1.5 billion ounces (over 40,000 metric tons), which represents about 50%
of all the gold ever mined on earth.
• The basin straddles the old provinces of Transvaal and the Orange Free
State, and consists of a 5000–7000 m thick layer of Archean, mainly
sedimentary rocks laid down over a period of about 260 million years.
• The entire series of rocks, known as the “Witwatersrand Supergroup’’
consists of quartzites, banded ironstones, mudstones, tillites,
conglomerates and some marine lava deposits.
• . Palaeoplacers of the Witwatersrand of South Africa has
produced 40,000 tonnes of gold and 1,00,000 tonnes of
uranium.
• The Wyoming palaeoplacers are ancient, consolidated,
brittle and Proterozoic (~2 billion years old) in age.
• These Wyoming deposits have produced several uranium,
thorium, gold and diamond anomalies.

“Carbon Lead Gold Ore”

 ORIGIN OF WITWATERSTRANDBASIN.
• There are two major hypotheses for the origin of gold with in
witwaterbasin:
1. THE PLACER MODEL:- gold was eroded from pre existing rock
and transported into basin.
2. HYDROTHERMAL MODEL:-fluid from deep within the earth
crust carried the gold along fault and fractures with in the
basin conglomerate.
• The gold mineralisation is found in the conglomerate bands
(called “reefs”), typically between 5 to 100 cm thick.
• The sedimentary basin subsequently suffered extensive
deformation, producing folds and faults that disrupt the deposit.
Faults impact significantly on safe (and efficient) mining.
• Underground mines operate up to a maximum depth of about
4,000 meters.Mineable grades in a deep gold mine operations
are of the order of 10 – 20 g/ton.
 INDIAN OCCURRENCE
• Palaeoplacer deposits found in India are Gold, Diamond, Tin,
Titanium, Cassiterite and some ores but not in more
concentration.
• Placer deposits of the SW coast of India have been known
fordecades and are being exploited. They are popularly known
as black sands and occur in modern beaches and in beach
terraces of the SW coast of India. These placers are enriched in
ilmenite,rutile, sillimanite, garnet, zircon and monazite.
• Two important economically viable beach placers occur at
Chavara in Quilon district of Kerala and at Manavalakuruchi in
Tamilnadu.
• Placer gold grains in the Nilambur valley of Wynad Gold Field in
Southern India .
PALEOPLACER DIAMOND OF WAIRAGARH
 Wairagarh conglomerates
• Wairagarh area in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra has been known for diamond
mining activity since historic times.

• The ancient mines, in the form of large pits, are located about 125 km NE of
Chandrapur and at the confluence of Sati Nadiand Khobragadi Nadi, both
tributaries to the Wainganga River.

• The workings are found in the conglomerates associatedwith Wairagarh

Metasedimentary Unit (WMS), and also in the olluviums.

• The WMS, assigned an age of Paleoproterozoic,is perhaps the oldest formation

containing diamonds in the country.

• WMS intrusion in the western part of Bastar Craton.

GARNET HEMATITE NATIVE Cu

CASSITERITE GOLD
  USES
• Gold is used in the currency, jewellry, alloys, plating
etc.
• Platinum is in catalyst, jewellry, electrical conductor.
• Diamond as precious gemstone and as an abrasive.
Silver in tableware, jewelry, film, mirrors, plating.
• Cassiterite as an ore of Tin. Magnetite as an ore of
iron.
• Zircon as semiprecious gem.
• Ilmenite as an ore of Titanium.
• Rutile in pigment, corundum as precious gemstone.
• Garnet, topaz as semiprecious gem and abrasive
material.
  CONCLUSION

• The most important economic attributes of placer deposits are size,

density and grade, for their commercial
extraction.

• Sometimes, placers are distributed faraway from their source rocks.

• Diamond, rutile and zircon are found as placers after several hundred
kms of their sources.

• Erosion, transportation and deposition of placer and heavy minerals

are very interesting areas of study in Earth sciences.

• Placer deposits yield the valuable mineral resources.

  REFERENCES:
• Economic Mineral Deposits by Mead.L.Jensen and Alan M.Bateman .
• Ore Deposit Geology by Richard Edwards and Keith Atkinson.
• https://en.wikipedia/wiki/Palaeochannel#Economic importance
• https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81781333.pdf.
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305924249_A_Review_
of_the_Witwatersrand_Basin.
THANK YOU…!