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DANUBE RIVER SANDY GRAVELS: NEW LOOK ON MINERAL RESOURCE POTENTIAL

Mgr. Michal Matasovsky, Ing. Klaudia Sandorova, Ing. Michal Marcin

Abstract

History of exploitation of gold from Danube river sandy gravels is centuries long. Interesting on it continues to the 1970пїЅs. Extaction of heavy minerals (HM) concentrate was never intend. About 1 milion m3 of sandy gravels is exloited in Slovak part of Danube basin for construction usage. Production of HM concentrate with gold as by-product can improve economy of exploitation. With average content 6,55 kg of HM in m3 of sandy gravels there is possibility to produce about 6500 t of HM concentrate with up to 30 kg of gold. HM concentrate contains more than 20 mineral species. Our aim is to find out effective separation process to produce monomineral concentrates of following minerals: garnet s.l., ilmenite, zircon, monazite, magnetite, rutile, gold. Essential condition is to use no chemistry (no flotation, leaching, activating). Experimental concentrate were prepared by пїЅclassicпїЅ sluicing on active river chanel near river km 1778. Sluice was 2,7m long covered with carpets. Bottom carpet 30 cm long was washed preliminary every 5 пїЅ 10 minutes, when it turns red colour from concentrated garnets. Grain size analysis show us that more than 99 % of HM are under 0,3mm. Next preliminary separation results was reached using gravitational, magnetic and electromagnetic methods: 99% magnetite and ilmenite concentrates, up to 96,4% garnet and 89% zircon concentrates. Monazite concentrate contains 23,33% REE. With computed geological reserves several km3 (only in Slovak part of Danube basin) and annual dreging of sphipway (cca 1 milion m3), Danube sandy gravels represent almost endless source of heavy minerals.

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