World Mining History

September 14, 2015

Eiji Izawa
Kyushu University
Mowana copper mine, Botswana
 Old shaft

Mowana copper mine

Gossan at Dikoloti North Ni-Cu-Pt prospect
Trench at Dikoloti North Ni-Cu-Pt prospect
Drilling at Dikoloti North Ni-Cu-Pt
prospect (February 24, 2010)
 Climatic Change
and
Beginnings of Metal Production
Manto de gelo na Era Glacial
Modified from Cunliffe (2008)
Chalcolithic Age
8500 BCE Pottery making
Native copper, Native gold
4500- 3500 BCE Copper smelting (Arsenical copper)
Bronze Age (3500- 1200 BCE)
3000 BCE Copper + cassiterite → Bronze
2500 BCE Increase of copper production
(Accidental iron with copper smelting)
2500-2000 BCE Cupellation (Silver and Lead)
1600 BCE Tin mining and smelting
Old metals, old mines and smelting

1. Use of metals
Pick up metals (gift or trade)
Fabrication (including smithing)

2. Smelting (primary metal production)

Stone Age

Chalcolithic Age
stone + copper

(Copper Age)
Bronze Age
Hauptmann (2007)
Copper smelting furnace at Timna
(Slide: Ancient Anatorian metallurgy
by Hadi Özbal)
 Stone hammer

Copper mining site (1000 BC?)

Yamaat, Mongolia

Sasada (2011)
 Human head
with gold leaf
(bronze)

Sanxingdui,
Sichuan province
~1000 BCE

Examples of old mining sites

Asahi Shinbun (1998)

The Tonglushan mine
Tonglushan skarn-type copper iron deposit
Tonglushan Spring and Autumn Era (~500 BCE)
北
Tonglushan
菱刈鉱山

霧島火山

鹿児島湾
Tonglushan
 Tonglushan

Furnace

Spring and Autumn Era

Slag (~500 BCE)
 2800-2500 BC Dagger blade with gold handle
from Alaca Hüyük(iron meteorite)

The beginning of Iron Age

Iron Age 1200 BC Early use of iron (Reduction of iron ore to solid ‘bloom’)
1000 BC Expansion of Iron working
500 BC Cast iron in China
Blast furnace for iron production in China

1150 AD Blast furnace in Sweeden

Iron Age
1200 BCE Early use of iron
(Reduction of iron ore to solid ‘bloom’).
1000 BCE Expansion of Ironworking
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

600 BCE Silver production at Laurion, Greek

600 BCE China’s Iron Age started
512 BCE Cast iron in China
200 BCE Blast furnace for iron production in China
45 BCE Brass for coinage in Roman Italy.
Copper + ‘calamine’ (ZnCO3) → brass
1200 CE Zinc smelting at Zawar, India
Various iron smelting furnaces
in the early Iron Age
Nigeria 300 BC

Iron smelting furnaces in Europe

Quarriy and iron ore at Meroe, Sudan (photographs by Sekihiro)
(Sekihiro and Suzuki, 2013)
Island Elba
Skarn type iron deposits
Limonite, Elba
Archaeomineralogy
Elements, Minerals
and
Mineral Deposits
Composition of the upper continental crust

Crustal abundance of the elements

(μg/g) (Rudnick and Gao, 2003)
Major element Minor element Trace element
O 47.5 x 104 S
621 Sb 0.4Si 31.1 x 104
Zn 67 Bi 0.16
Al 8.2 x 104 Cu 28 Ag 0.053
Fe 3.9 x 104 Pb 17 Hg 0.05
Ca 2.6 x 104 As 4.8 Au 0.0015
Ti 0.4 x 104 Sn 2.1 Pt 0.0005
Craton and Orogenic Belt
Sillitoe (1995)
 Mesozoic

Precambrian gneiss
and granite

Palaeozoic
 Genetic classification of mineral deposits
Magmatic hydrothermal systems
Porphyry Cu-(Au) Cu-(Mo) W Sn
Skarn Cu-(Au)-Fe Zn-Pb-(Ag)
Epithermal vein Au-Ag Zn-Pb-(Ag) Cu-(Ag)
Greisen Sn-W
Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide deposits
Besshi-type Cu Kuroko-type Cu-Zn-Pb-(Ag)

Orthomagmatic deposits Ni-Pt (Cu) Cr Carbonatite REE

Rift-related ore deposits
SEDEX (Sedimentary exalative stratiform sulfide deposits )
Cu (Mt. Isa) Zn-Pb (McArthur River)
Olympic Dam Cu-Au-U deposit [Iron Oxide-Copper-Gold deposit?]
Continental environments
Basinal Mississippi Valley type Pb-Zn
Copper belt Cu-(Co) Kupferschiefer Cu-(Ag)
Metamorphic Orogenic gold deposits (greenstone belt hosted; turbidite hosted) Au
Sedimentary BIF (Algoma type, Superior type and Lapitan type) Fe
Minette Fe Sedimentary Mn
Undifferentiated Carlin-type gold deposits (Sediment-hosted gold deposits ) Au
2. 4 g/t Au Epithermal
high sulfidation Au deposit
Akeshi mine
 50 ML W83B YU1-3E
Vein width１m
1637 g/t Au, 552 g/t Ag

Epithermal
low sulfidation Au vein
Hishikari mine
0.5 % Cu
0.5 g/t Au
Reserves 900 Mt

Porphyry copper
Panguna mine,
Papua New Guinea
(Smirnov, 1965)
Mineral Economics

What are Resources?

(Kesler, 1994)
1981

Coal
Proved recoverable reserves: 891531 Mt
World production in 2013: 7667 Mt
891531/7667 = 116 years

(Izawa, 1986)
Society Nature

Modified from Barney (1980)

Modified from Govett & Govett (1977)
U.S. Bureau of Mines Minerals Yearbook (1932-1993)
U.S. Geological Survey Minerals Yearbook (1994-2012)
Development of
Mining Technolog
Silver production technology
 25500 t
(2012)

Century of silver
? 47 420 340 t
Century of Silver
 Production of silver
2500-2000 BCE Cupellation (silver from lead)
Argentiferous galena

? Lead addition (smelting of silver ore)

Silver ore + lead
(Pb metal, litharge [PbO] or galena [PbS])

1453 CE Liquation (lead from copper)

Silver rich copper ores + lead
(Nuernberg, Germany)
1550 CE Amalgamation (lead from copper)
Silver ore + mercury
(Pachuca, Mexico)
 (Pb.Ag) + air (O2) → litharge (PbO) + Ag

Cupellation
furnace

Silver refining

Coin
Litharge

Laurion silver mine, Greek

石見銀山
Image of cupellation in 500 BCE（Conophagos,1980）
 Liquation (Saigern)
Invented in Nuernberg, Germany (~1430)

Smelting of argentiferous copper ore →

silver bearing Cu

Cu (Ag) + Pb → [Cu + Pb (Ag)]

Liquation: separation of lead

from copper
Melting temperature
Cu 1083 ℃
Pb 327 ℃

Agricola (1556)
Saigerhuette Gruenthal, Sachsen 16th c

(Kasper, 1993)
Liquation: Separation of argentiferous lead from copper
Sumitomo Dobuki-sho (Sumitomo Copper Refinery, Osaka) (Kodo Zuroku, ca1811)
Iwami Ag
1526〜
Sado Au-Ag
1601~
(Izawa, 2008)
 Metal Export through the Dutch East India Company

silver←1668→gold←1675→copper

(Izawa, 1988)
Sado produced koban (1,450,000 pieces = 22 t Au) in 75 years (1621-1695)
VOC exported koban (1,400,000 pieces = 20 t Au) in 71 years (1665-1735)

(Izawa, 2013)
Copper Mining
Falun “Great Pit “
(100 m depth, 300×370 m ）
formed by a collapse in 1687
 Falun 1684

Roasting stall

Smelting furnace
(Lindroth, 1955)
Falun 1683 (Lindroth, 1955)
(Izawa, 2016)
 Modern mining
1760-1820 Industrial Revolution → Coal mining
1859 Edwin Drake’ well in Pennsylvania
(the first modern oil well)
1886 Spread of cyanidation for gold extraction
1906 CE Open pit mining in Bingham Canyon
1910 CE Spread of froth-floatation process
Selective mining → Bulk mining
1960 CE Heap leaching / carbon in pulp process
for gold extraction
1990 CE Spread of SX-EW process for copper metallurgy
(Gerst, 2008)
Exploration
Mining
Dressing

floatation
Smelting
 Refining
and
casting

Capacity 320t