By Shawn Bolker, Gabe Commissaris and Justin Wilson
Overview:
Titanium is a type of metal that is distinguished by its silver color, low density, and high strength. Titanium has the ability to be alloyed with other minerals like aluminum which then can then be used in the construction of aircraft, spacecraft, and missiles. Titanium’s resistance to corrosion has also made it an important feature of power plant pipelines and ship hulls. Since titanium is strong and relatively non-toxic, it has also been used in the medical field to create joint replacements and implants. Titanium is one of the whitest substances on Earth and resists fading under ultra violet radiation. The use of it as an additive consists of almost 95% of its total production. Titanium oxide is a key ingredient for pigment in house paint, plastics, and papers. Is also used in sunscreen as an important element that blocks UV rays.
Titanium is present in the Earth’s crust at a level of about 0.6% and is therefore the fourth most abundant structural metal on Earth after aluminum, iron and magnesium. Titanium is always bonded to other elements. Igneous and metamorphic rocks, and the sediments that are derived from them, characteristically contain titanium minerals. Titanium occurs in rocks in the form oxide and silicate minerals. Of greatest economic value are titanium-bearing oxide minerals such as ilmenite, rutile, anatase, brookite, perovskite and magnetite. The most important mineral sources however are ilmenite (FeTiO3) and rutile (TiO2).
Major ilmenite deposits exist on the eastern coast and western coast of Australia; Richards Bay in South Africa; eastern coast of America; Kerala in India; and the eastern coast and southern coast of Brazil. Major rutile deposits are present on the eastern and western coast of Australia; southwest coast of Sierra Leone; Richards Bay in South Africa, Canada, China and in India. Rutile and ilmenite are extracted from sands that may only contain a few percent by weight of these minerals in these deposits. Synthetic rutile can be produced from naturally occurring ilmenite which is a complex oxide with iron. Rutile is used in the manufacturing of titanium dioxide pigment.
Justin: Site of Production: Mildura, NSW, Australia.
Located approximately 85 kilometres (km) north of Mildura and some 40 km west of the township of Pooncarie in western New South Wales, Australia, lies the Ginkgo and Snapper mineral sands mines. These mines are situated in the Murray-Darling Basin, a large geographical area in the interior of southeastern Australia. The basin, whose name is derived from the Murray and Darling Rivers, drains around one-seventh of the Australian land mass, and is one of the most significant agricultural areas in Australia. It spans most of the states of New South Wales, Victoria, and the Australian Capital Territory, as well as parts of the states of Queensland and South Australia. The range in climate across the Murray–Darling Basin reflects it size, of over 1 million square kilometers, and has diverse geography of rugged mountains to flat semi-arid plains. The climate of the Basin is sub-tropical in the north, semi-arid in the west and temperate in the south. The basin is home to hundreds of birds, mammals, fish, amphibians and reptiles, although about 60 of such species are endangered today, and quite a few species have already gone extinct.
Australia is rich in mineral sand resources but, because these deposits are mainly located at or near the coast, their mining often competes with other land uses such as agriculture, national parks, urban or tourist development and recreation. The areas surrounding the Ginkgo and Snapper mines are largely agricultural. Mildura boasts a surrounding horticulture area, known as the traditional pumped district, where the original grape and citrus blocks are located with water irrigated from the Murray River. Mining for mineral sands however, is a large source of employment for the roughly 30,000 inhabitants of Mildura even with its only recent emergence on the scene as of late in this specific region. Mining for mineral sands and processing is one of the largest industries in this region alongside transport, healthcare, agriculture and education. Several towns surround Mildura on the flat plains, which could be considered suburban areas or satellite towns separated by small stretches of open farmland, however most workers at the Ginkgo and Snapper sand mines drive to the mine site from either Broken Hill or Mildura and are housed on site, in camp accommodation, whilst carrying out their shifts. During any given day there are approximately 250 people onsite living at these mines, generally on a working schedule of 5 days on, 5 days off.
Cristal Mining
The mineral sand deposits where the Ginkgo and Snapper mines are, are relict beaches from an inland sea that existed ~7 Million years ago. When the Ginkgo mine began production in 2005 in the Murray Basin region it was the first commercial mine to ever do so. Since that time, the same mine owner, Bemax Resources, have opened another similar operation, 10 kilometers to its south, known as the Snapper mineral sand mine. Given the high grade mineral deposits that exist in the Murray Basin, various other mining operations have also been proposed by other companies that could lead this region of Australia to soon become the world’s largest single source of titanium minerals. Currently, however, the new Snapper mine uses the same infrastructure and processing plant at Broken Hill, as does the Ginkgo mine, while both mines produce rutile and zircon. These mineral sands from which the rutile and zircon are produced are associated with uranium and thorium bearing minerals (eg monazite and xenotime), which can lead to radiation exposure during mining, processing and transport, making it somewhat of a dangerous business.
The operation of these mines involves three main practices in order to mine for these prosperous titanium minerals. Firstly the removal and replacement of topsoil, generally 0.7m-1m in depth, secondly, the removal and replacement of overburden, generally 1-35m in depth, and thirdly the mining of the ore and replacement of tailings, generally 15-55m in depth. Both mines utilize a traditional wet dredge method of sand mining to recover the ore deposits. A process “chosen as the most suitable way of recovering the mineral sand because of the plentiful ground water resource and the specific suitability of the type of sand making up the ore body”, according to Bemax Resources.
Shawn: Site of Production #2: Starke, Florida, USA.
The small town of Starke, Florida, is one of the handful of Titanium mining locations along the East Coast of the United States. A rural town in northern Florida, Starke has a tropical climate and relatively flat topography. Although titanium is extracted on Trail Ridge, an area near the city limits, the town of Starke doesn’t completely revolve around the mine. Titanium production, although an important economic asset to the city, isn’t Starke’s largest employer or what the town is known for. According to a 2015 census, healthcare and social services were actually the town’s largest employers with 23% of residents working in those industries. Professional, scientific, and technical services (13%) or manufacturing (6%), both of which could relate to the nearby mine, employ small fractions of the population (City Data, 2015). Some, like resident Jim Sullivan, weren’t even aware that such a mine existed until he caught wind of it through a recent news story. He was floored, “a titanium mine in Starke? I had been under the impression that such things were more likely to be found in Nevada or Australia or New Guinea” (Salon 2008). Such remarks reflect the ambiguous relationship between residents of Starke and its titanium mine.
GSA Publications
Trail Ridge, the location of the mine, is a geologic formation of the southeastern U.S. that rises about a hundred feet above sea level. The ridge stretches almost 200 miles from Gainesville, Florida (25 miles south of Starke), well into southeast Georgia. Trail Ridge is comprised of remnants of a sand bar formed more than 250,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene Era. During this time, a transgressing sea pushed the coastline of Florida 50 to 70 miles from where it’s current location. Over several thousands of years, waves deposited a variety of heavy minerals, including titanium bearing ilmenite, onto the growing sand bar. Trail ridge emerged when the ocean receded and is now one of the U.S.’ largest sources of heavy minerals. The Starke Mine was first dredged in 1949 by the DuPont Chemical Company. Much of the current land around Trail Ridge today consists of pine forest, urban settlements, and mines.
Although titanium itself is non-toxic, strip mining has degraded local pine forests of Florida, increased local erosion and polluted local rivers through sulfuric acid formation. Dredging and gravity separation of sands are the main inhibitors of erosion. Deforestation for strip mining has limited northern Florida’s biodiversity and although officials do re-plant pines over old mines, these forests are relics of what once was. Sulfuric acids can form during pigment production which leak into groundwater and are destructive to marine life in the oceans. According to a 2006 USGS water quality survey of the Santa Fe River near the Starke mine, sulfate concentration was 281 mg per liter, well above the U.S. average of 59.5 mg per liter (USGS). High sulfate levels lead to devastating eutrophication in streamside ecosystems and can poison marine life. These sky high sulfate levels indicate that the Starke Mine needs to pay closer attention to their disposal of titanium pigment production byproducts.
Gabe: Site of production #3: Xolobeni, South Africa.
Xolobeni
At the coast of the Eastern Cape of South Africa lies a remote village known as Xolobeni. Xolobeni is the home of the Amadiba people. Within its beautiful sand dunes and beaches lies the world’s 10th largest deposit of titanium and other heavy metals. Titanium has put this village on the map by sparking an almost 10 year mineral conflict. The Australian corporation Mineral Commodities(MRC) seeks to build a titanium mine of immense size within this region. The supporters of the Xolobeni mine as it’s called, claim that it will be economically beneficial to the region because of job creation. It is being viewed as a catalyst to reshape a region that is very much impoverished. A lot of the local community however is strongly opposed to this project due to the potential negative ecological impact it would have. Water pollution via leaching, overuse of water which is needed to strip the sand dunes, and loss of vegetation are among the biggest concerns.
Mining in this region would also require the people of this community to leave their land which would disrupt their livelihoods and spiritual traditions. They are also concerned about conflict that will arise over the wealth generated by the project since community relations have already been damaged by its proposal. This conflict has a lot more meaning that goes beyond the local level. It is seen as a symbol of a paradigm shift from the traditional mining industry to a more sustainable method of maintaining the collapsing economy. The people there recognize the need for jobs and better infrastructure, but see this method as obsolete in the long run. It is also a symbol of resistance towards mining corporations that are exploiting several other regions in Africa to obtain its rich mineral deposits. This situation is viewed by some as a continuation of Apartheid since it is primarily European backed corporations that are exploiting Africa as a nation and taking away many of the people’s rights in the process.
Conclusion:
As seen from the above places of production titanium is found in mineral sands located in various places all over the globe. Often these sites of production where mining occurs hold significance historically in that mineral sands are often found in areas where large bodies of water such as oceans or seas, sometimes millions of years old, once were. Mineral sands are often abundant and found in large quantities, however the process of mining for and producing titanium can lead to digging at great depths. The sheer abundance of mineral sands in some areas makes titanium very favorable for mining given its economic value, however sometimes to the detriment of the natural landscape left behind after mining operations. Massive swathes of land are altered during the mining of mineral sands, namely by way of deforestation, erosion and water pollution.
Although titanium may appear strictly as a metal when one is on a plane or at the doctor’s, the mineral actually surrounds us in ways most don’t fully realize. Metals are actually only 5% of what titanium is used for. Since most titanium takes the form of titanium dioxide, a white pigment for color, the mineral is central to modern life as we know it. Titanium dioxide appears in paint, toothpaste, sunscreen, and oreo filling – just to name a few. Without titanium dioxide, countless items we take for granted would not appear or function as we know them. Many products, like paint, would also increase in price as there aren’t too many substitutes that create the same bright whiteness that are as common and relatively non-toxic as titanium.
I would recommend consumers to take a step back and consider titanium as more than just a metal. One needs to appreciate its deep geologic and varied cultural history. Heavy mineral deposits have lingered in our sands for millennia. Only recently have humans utilized these minerals to enhance our modern lives. While the mineral may be considered a source of wealth to some, it doesn’t bear as much significance to others. Xolobeni, for example, doesn’t place much value on what lies beneath the land they live off of. They instead focus on what species grow from the land and this is why they are so opposed to titanium mining. Consumers must appreciate how titanium is sourced as it can often be extracted at the expense of others.
References:
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http://metalpedia.asianmetal.com/metal/titanium/resources&production.shtml.
US Geologic Survey. “Geologic Evolution of Trail Ridge: Eolian Heavy Mineral Sand and Underlying Peat, Northern Florida.”
Van Gosen, Bradley S., and Donald I. Bleiwas. “Global Deposits of Heavy Mineral Sands: Global Significance and U.S. Resources.” Heavy Mineral Sands. October 2016.