minerals Article From Fresh Itabirites and Carbonates to Weathered Iron Ore: Mineral Composition, Density and Porosity of Different Fresh and Altered Rocks from the Quadrilátero Ferrífero, Brazil Diniz Ribeiro 1,*, Israel Moraes 1, Rogerio Kwitko-Ribeiro 2, Deivid Braga 1, Carlos Spier 3 and Pedro Santos 4 1 Vale S.A., Iron Resource Management, Escritório de Águas Claras, Nova Lima, MG 34.006-200, Brazil;
[email protected] (I.M.);
[email protected] (D.B.) 2 Vale S.A., Mineral Technology, Centro de Desenvolvimento Mineral, Santa Luzia, MG 33.040-900, Brazil;
[email protected] 3 School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia;
[email protected] 4 Independent Consultant, Itabira, MG 35.900-360, Brazil;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: The weathering of Paleoproterozoic itabirites (metamorphic-banded iron formations) and dolomites from the Cauê and Gandarela Formations in the Quadrilátero Ferrífero (QF), Brazil, produces supergene iron ore with different mineralogical, chemical, and physical properties. In this work, we present a methodology to assess the changes in chemical and physical features of those rocks during weathering, via quantitative analyses of mineral assemblages. These mineral assemblages were calculated from chemical analyses of fresh and weathered samples collected from drill holes drilled in different iron ore deposits in the QF. In general, the number of mineral species found in fresh or/and weathered itabirite is restricted, which helps the quantification of the mass and volumes of minerals by normative calculation in a large dataset of drilling and channel samples.