Factors controlling rare earth element plus yttrium enrichment in Fe–Mn crusts from Canary Islands Seamounts (NE Central Atlantic)

verfasst von

E. Marino, F. J. González, T. Kuhn, P. Madureira, L. Somoza, T. Medialdea, A. Lobato, C. Miguel, J. Reyes, M. Oeser

Abstract

Marine minerals are important because concentrate in their structure high contents of strategic and critical elements as rare earth elements. Forty-two samples from eight seamounts of Canary Islands Seamount Province (CISP) have been analyzed in order to evaluate their rare earth elements plus yttrium contents (REY). Highest contents of REY are related to hydrogenetic minerals and essentially Fe-vernadite (on average 3000 μg/g). Diagenetic minerals, on the other hand, show the lowest REY contents with an average content of 260 μg/g. These differences also depend on the growth rates, hydrogenetic minerals with growth rates between 0.5 and 5 mm/Ma allow the incorporation of more REY in their structure. REY contents in studied samples varies depending several factors associated with depth and location, shallowest samples presumably growth near or within the oxygen minimum zone are the most enriched with up to 3800 μg/g due to local enrichment of these elements and the slowest growth rate promoted by the reduced ambient conditions while deeper samples around 3000 m water depth show 2800 μg/g. Location also has a role in REY contents essentially due to the presence of different currents. Samples faced to north are exposed to the more oxygenated waters of the North Atlantic Deep Water and are depleted in REY if compared with deeper samples facing to south to the more oxic Antarctic Bottom Water. Finally, the case of study made on three different seamounts of the CISP show that Fe–Mn crusts from this area could provide on average 130 tons of hydrometallurgical recovered REY (based on 1 km² areal crust coverage) together with interesting quantity of several other strategic and base elements as Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, V, Mo between others.

Organisationseinheit(en)

Institut für Mineralogie

Externe Organisation(en)

Universidade de Evora
Portuguese Task Group for the Extension of the Continental Shelf (EMEPC)
Geological Survey of Spain (IGME)

Typ

Artikel

Journal

Marine geology

Band

464

ISSN

0025-3227

Publikationsdatum

10.2023

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Ozeanographie, Geologie, Geochemie und Petrologie

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

SDG 14 – Lebensraum Wasser

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2023.107144 (Zugang: Offen)