EG9601646 Second Arab Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, Cairo 5-9 Nov. 1994 AAEA The Egyptian Placer Deposits- A Potential Source for Nuclear Raw Materials

Gooda A. Dabbour Nuclear Materials Authority, Cairo, Egypt.

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Abstract Extensive black sands placer deposits are discontinuously distributed along the northern Mediterranean coastal plain of the Nile Delta as well as Sinai Peninsula i.e. in the coastal stretch between Abu Qir town to the west and Rafah city on the eastern Egyptian Frontiers. These sediments contain strategic and economic heavy minerals which are required for the industrial exploitation whether for nuclear industry or other metal- lurgical and engineering industries. The mentioned deposits comprise huge reserves of the six heavy economic minerals which include mona- zite, zircon, rutile, ilmenite, magnetite, and garnet. 191 The first three economic minerals namely monazite, zircon, and rutile contain uranium, thorium, zirconium, hafnium, titanium as well as rare earth elements, thus monazite, which is a rare earths-thorium anhydrous orthophosphate assays 0.48% U3O8, 6.04% Th O2, and 61.31% RE2O3. Egyptian beach zircon which is a zirconium silicate mineral contain 67.06% (Zr+Hf) O2. Traces of uranium assays from 0.04% to 0.11%. U3O8, while its thorium content varies from 0.02% to 1.19% Th O2. The beach rutile is almost a puretitanium dioxide assaying up to 98.64% TiO2- Therefore, the geological reserves of the nuclear materials were estimated to reveal enormous reserves. In the light of these data, the Nuclear Materials Authority has established a plant for the exploitation of the Egyptian placer deposits at Rosetta area to produce monazite, zircon, and rutile concentrates. The monazite concentrate will be processed for the production of uranium, thorium, and rare earth oxides cakes, while zirconium, hafnium, uranium, and thorium oxides could be extracted from the zircon concentrate. Titanium dioxide for nuclear industry and paints could be produced from the rutile concentrate. In the mean time zircon as a mineral would be used in ceramic industry whereas rutile as a mineral would be used in welding rods industry. Besides, the rare earth oxides cake could be used in ferro-silicon alloys.

1- Introduction The Egyptian black sands placer deposits on the Mediterranean Coastal Plain contain many mineral species as they have been derived from igneous and metamorphic rocks [1]. Many studies were carried out dealing with the mineralogical composition, grain size distribution, origin of the sediments as well as their economic considerations [1 to 25]. The mineral constituents include six heavy economic minerals; namely magnetite, ilmenite, monazite, zircon, rutile and garnet. Monazite, zircon and rutile minerals do contain a number of elements necessary for the nuclear industry e.g. uranium, thorium, zirconium, hafnium, titanium and rare earths elements. Thus, the evaluation of these raw materials in the Egyptian blacksands placerdeposits would be calculated on the basis of the reserves of monazite, zircon and rutile mineral content in four localities along the Mediterranean Coastal Plain; namely Rosetta, Baltim, Damietta and north Sinai.

192 2- Geology Since the Late Miocene [26] and before the completion of the High Dam in May 1964, the River Nile was discharging huge quantities of sediments during the annual flood seasons in the Mediterranean Sea. These sediments were the final products of the disintegrated materials from the two main drainage areas of the Nile Basin which cover an area of about 3,000,000 km2 i.e. The Equatorial Plateau (igneous rocks) and the Ethiopian Plateau (metamorphic rocks). The River Nile poured its load in the Mediterranean Sea either by the to-day Rosetta and Damietta distributaries (Fig. 1 ) or through the seven old extinct Nile Branches. Ball [27] described the courses and the outpourings of the seven old extinct Nile Distributaries and stated that the outpourings were located in the coastal plain area that extend between Idku openning and El Farama east of Port Said (Fig.2). In other words, the black sands deposits are distributed along the Mediterranean Coastal Plain in the sector extending between Abu Qir town to the west and Rafah city on the Eastern Egyptian frontiers (Fig. 1).These sediments are now present either as beach deposits or in the form of coastal plain sand dunes. The high grade black sands are associated with the outpourings of the Nile Distributaries whether the present or the extinct ones. The reserve estimation of monazite, zircon and rutile minerals will be carried out at the two locality related to the to-day Rosetta and Damietta promontories and two other locality related to the extinct Sebbenytic and Pelusaic estuaries. The study will include both beach sediments as well as coastal plain sand dune£. 3- Reserves Estimation The four chosen localities for geological reserve evaluation for monazite, zircon and rutile are considered to be the principal black sands deposits. The first locality is on both sides of Rosetta promontory. It extends from Idku Lake outlet to El Burrullus Lake openning. This stretch is about 70 km long and its width varies from about 200 m to about 5000 m with an average width of about 800 m. The area is characterized mainly by beach deposits except west Rosetta outpouring sector which has coastal plain sand dunes. The depth of the black sands in this area reaches about 9m. Beyond this depth, the sand fraction decreases to be less than 40% while the clay fraction constitutes the 193 major percentage. Above the mentioned depth, the sand fraction generally exceeds 60% of the sediments. The second locality is the coastal plain sand dune belt in which the heavy minerals content reaches up to about 35% and covers the area from Burg El Burrullus village eastward to El Gharbia Main Drainage, a stretch of about 15 km long and average width of about 800m. The height of the sand dunes in this area reaches up to 15m, however, an average height of 5m will be considered. Assuming that the beach sediments under the sand dunes reach about 10m depth, the thickness of the deposit in this area will be considered as 1 5m. The third locality is the north western part of El Manzalla Lake and the beach area just east of Damietta outpouring. The depth of this deposit will be 10 m and the area is about 30 km2. This area is characterized by a series of parallel sand bars called "Barr" trending generally northwest and are separated by longitudinal lagoons called "Tawal". The mechanism of formation of these parallel sand bars was attributed by Said [281 and Hamama [291 to be the result of the accretion of the bottom sediments of the continental shelf by the wave action and the continuous accumulation of these sands till the sand bar became exposed on the surface of the sea water leaving a longitudinal lagoon behind it. The last locality is the north Sinai coastal plain sector which extends between the eastern openning of El Bardawiel Lake at El Zaraniq in the west and El Arish town in the east. This stretch is about 20 km in length and about 500 m width It is characterized by beach deposits lined from the south by north Sinai sand dune belt [30]. The depth of the deposit in this area is about 10 m. In order to estimate the reserves of the black sands in the four localities and consequently the monazite, zircon and rutile mineral content, the apparent specific gravity of the dry sand used in the calculations must be 1.7 g/cm3 [31]. Also, the average frequencies of each of the monazite, zircon, and rutile minerals in the Egyptian black sands will be considered as 0.02%, 0.22% and 0.12% respectively. Due to the fact that Egyptian beach monazite almost belongs to one variety, its uranium and thorium contents do not vary greatly, on the otherhand, the uranium and thorium contents of zircon show great variation due to the presence of several varieties of beach zircon. The 194 existence of uranium and thorium in zircon is either due to defects in zircon structure or to inclusions of radioactive minerals like uranothorite. The coloured, cloudy, zoned (inclusions) and metamict zircon varieties contain more uranium and thorium than the colorless water-clear zircon varieties [32, 33, 34, 35 & 36]. Therefore, the different varieties of the Egyptian beach zircons were separated on the basis of their mass magnetic susceptibility. The obtained fractions were analyzed for their uranium and thorium contents. The U3O8, Th O2 and the frequency of each fraction were calculated and tabulated in table (1). From these values the average content was found to be 0.06% U3O8 and 0.04% Th O2.

TABLE.I: FREQUENCIES OF MAGNETIC ZIRCON FRACTIONS

AND THEIR U3O8 AND Th O2 CONTENTS.

Current u3o8 ThO2 Frequency (amp) % % % 0.3 0.037 0.148 0.78 0.5 0.065 0.555 0.85 0.7 0.111 1.186 2.73 0.9 0.088 0.540 2.36 1.1 0.075 0.219 3.33 1.3 0.080 0.092 4.37 1.5 0.070 0.073 2.58 1.5 Non mag 0.046 0.020 82.28

The uranium, thorium, titanium, and rare earths elements contents in the Egyptian beach monazite were taken from the chemical assay given by Hammoud [ll]on 99.9% monazite concentrate. The adopted percentages of the nuclear elements in monazite, zircon and rutile used in the reserve calculations are shown in table (2). Accordingly, the tonnages of the oxides of each of the uranium, thorium, zirconium plus hafnium, titanium, and rare earths elements and the estimated reserves of the monazite, zircon and rutile are calculated and tabulated in table (3). The obtained reserve estimates of the black sands, monazite, zircon and rutile in the four studied localities are also shown in table (3).

195 TABLE II: AVERAGE CONTENTS OF THE NUCLEAR RAW MATERIALS IN MONAZ1TE, ZIRCON AND RUTILE.

Oxides Monazite Zircon Rutile (Hamoud) Deer et al. (371 U3O8 % 0.48 0.06* —

Th O2 % 6.04 0.04* _

(Zr + Hf)O2 % — 67.06* — Ti O2 % 0.06 0.06** 98.64

RE2 O3 % 61.31 0.03** - * El Shazly et al. [19] - **Hammoud [11]

TABLE III: ESTIMATED RESERVES OF THE BLACK SANDS, MONAZITE, ZIRCON, AND RUTILE AS WELL AS THE NUCLEAR ELEMENTS IN THE FOUR STUDIED LOCALITIES.

UNIT ROSETTA BALTJM DAMIEITA SINAI TOTAL Length (m) 70,000 15,000 30,000 20,000 135,000 Width (m) 800 800 1,000 500 Depth (m) 9 15 10 10 Volume (m3) 494 x I06 180 x 106 300 x 106 100 x 106 1074.OxlO6 6 6 6 6 6 Weight (t) 839.8xlO 306 xlO 510 x 10 170 x 10 1825.8xlO MONAZITE (0 167,960 61,200 102,000 34,000 365,160 ZIRCON (0 1,847,560 673,200 1,122,000 374,000 4,016,760 RUTILE <*) 1,007,760 367,200 612,000 204,000 2,190,960 U3Q8 (t) 1,915 698 1,163 388 4,164 ThO2 (0 10,884 3,966 6,610 2,203 23,663 (Zr + HO O2 (t) 1,238,974 451,448 752,413 250,804 2,693,639

TiO2 (t) 995,272 362,647 604,411 201,470 2,163,800 RE2O3 (0 103,531 37,724 62,873 20,958 225,086

4- Discussion The extensive Egyptian black sands placer deposits exhibit vast reserves of monazite, zircon and rutile beside magnetite, ilmenite and garnet minerals. The former three minerals have nuclear importance due to their content of nuclear raw materials. Monazite which is a rare earths-thorium anhydrous orthopliosphate contains uranium, thorium, 196 titanium and rare earth elements. Zircon is mainly a zirconium silicate mineral with uranium, thorium, hafnium, titanium, and rare earth elements in minor quantities. Rutile mineral is essentially a titanium dioxide assaying up to 98.64% TiC>2 but some rutile varieties contain Nb and/or Ta due to similarities of their ionic radii [37]. Therefore, their reserves in the black sands were calculated and were found to be enermous quantities. Different previous studies have dealt with the reserves of the heavy economic minerals in Rosetta and Damietta localities either in the top meter, in 12m depth or 20m depth. El Shazly [38] estimated the economic mineral reserves, the monazite reserves and both the U3O8 and Th O2 reserves in east Damietta locality as well as east Rosetta locality to a depth of 20m. (Table4). About 707 million ton of heavy economic minerals were estimated in 1.6 km2 in Abu Khashaba beach to a depth of 12m [39]. Another estimate in an area of 8.25 km2 to 20m depth in the same locality exhibit 30.5 million ton of heavy economic minerals containing 113,000 ton monazite, 354,000 ton zircon and 220,000 ton rutile [40].Moreover,EBASCO [41] estimated 37,200,000 ton heavy economic minerals in 12 km2 to 20m depth in east Rosetta beach and 5,400,000 ton heavy economic minerals in about 5 km2 at west Rosetta locality to a depth of about 20m.

TABLE IV: RESERVES OF ECONOMIC MINERALS,

MONAZITE, U3O8 and Th O2 ESTIMATED BY EL SHAZLY [38],

Locality Econ. Monazite u3o8 Th O2 Minerals (ton) (ton) (ton) (ton) East Damietta 138,446,000 2,748,000 12,360 162,680 East Rosetta 477,800,000 3,520,000 15,840 208,308

All the previous reserve estimates exceed the present reserve estimates owing to the excess depth. Besides, previous studies revealed that the upper five meters contain nearly two thirds of the total economic mineraly in the upper 12 meter depth [39]. This mean that 197 the upper crust of 10 meter thickness is more convincing in reserve estimation than the 12 or 20 meter depth. The presently evaluated four localities have a length of only about 135 km from the total length of the concerned coastal plain which extends for about 500 km. The intervening localities do have also monazite, zircon and rutile but with low concentrations. In addition, the indurated sand dunes bordering the northern Sinai beach east of El Arish to Rafah have also heavy economic minerals including also monazite, zircon and rutile minerals. This means that the estimated reserves of the black sands as well as the interesting minerals monazite, zircon and rutile would increase if the whole area is taken in consideration. The four studied localities revealed about 1800 million tons of the black sands which would be adequate for a profitable industrial exploitation for about 130 years using a plant capacity of 1000 cubic meter of dry sand per hour. In this case, the expected produced quantities from Rosetta locality will give about 168,000 ton monazite, 1,848,000 ton zircon and 1,009,000 ton rutile. Baltim area would yield about 61,000 ton monazite, 673,000 ton zircon and 367,000 ton rutile. Damietta area has about 102,000 ton monazite, 1,122,000 ton zircon and 612,000 ton rutile. El Arish beach area contains about 34,000 ton monazite, 374,000 ton zircon and 201,000 ton rutile. Therefore, the four localities would yield about 365,000 ton monazite, 4,017,000 ton zircon and 2,191,000 ton rutile. on the other hand, the total estimated reserves in the four studied localities attain about 4,000 ton U3O8, 24,000 ton Th O2, 2,694,000 ton (Zr+Hf) O2, 2,164,000 ton Ti O2 and 225,000 ton RE2O3. 5- Industrial Exploitation The industrial exploitation of these deposits will now be discussed on the basis of three alternatives of production capacities. Proposed capacities include 10 m3/h, 100m3/h, and 1000 m3/h of dry sands. At the same time, the daily working hours could be 8, 16 or 24. In case of 8 working hours per day, the used tonnages of raw black sands in a year and consequently the produced tonnages of monazite, zircon and rutile concentrates as well as the calculated quantities of nuclear elements are shown in table V. If the working hours per day were doubled or tripled i.e. 16 or 24 hour per day the maximum exploited raw black sands in a 198 year the produced monazite, zircon and rutile and the expected nuclear raw materials will be two or three times as the given figures in table V respectively.

Besides the nuclear applications of the black sands minerals in the nuclear industry, other metallurgical and engineering application of some of these minerals could be mentioned. Zircon mineral could be used in ceramic industry as the glazing material specially the colourless water clear zircon variety which constitute about 82,28% of the beach zircon and contain the lowest values of uranium and thorium (0.046% & 0.020% respectively). The other zircon varieties represent about 17.72% of the total zircon and contain more uranium and thorium (Table 3). Therefore, the colourless water clear zircon is used in the ceramic industry while the other zircon varieties are suitable for extraction of the nuclear raw materials. Rutile, on the other hand, beside its nuclear industry uses is used in welding rods industry as well as in the production of the titanium dioxide pigment. The obtained rare earths elements from monazite processing can be used in ferrosilicon alloy industry.

TABLE V: THE TONNAGES OF RAW BLACK SANDS, MONAZITE, ZIRCON, RUTILE AND THE CORRESPONDING NUCLEAR ELEMENTS PER YEAR (8 WORKING HOURS DAILY)

10 m3/h 100 m3/h 1000 m3/h (ton) (ton) (ton) An Hour 17 170 1.700 8 Hours 136 1,360 13,600 A Year 40,800 408,000 4,080,000 MONAZITE 8.16 81.60 816 ZIRCON 89.76 897.60 8,976 RUTILE 48.96 489.60 4,896 u3o8 0.093 0.930 9.302 ThO2 0.529 5.288 52.877 (Zr + HF) O2 60.193 601.931 6,019,306

TiO2 48.353 483,529 4,835,290 RE2O3 5.030 50,298 502,982

199 Acknowledgement The author is deeply indepted to Prof. Dr. N.T. El Hazek, President of the Nuclear Materials Authority for his kind advice and critical reading the manuscript. The fruitful advices of Prof. Dr. Mamdouh A. Hassan are greatly appreciated.

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203 io oo' " yftf A 00 c HEDi TEN RAKE A N SEA

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FIG. 1. Map Showing The Location of The Four Studied Areas

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FIG. 2. Map Showing The Seven Old Extinct Nil Branches ( After Ball, 1942 )

204