Iron 2010 - Major Iron Deposits of Southern Africa and Brazil

Iron 2010
Major Iron Deposits of Southern Africa and Brazil
19 to 30 April, 2010

Porter GeoConsultancy continued its International Study Tour series of professional development courses during October 2010, by visiting a representative selection of the most significant iron deposits of southern Africa and Brazil.

These deposits represented each of the different major ore styles, districts, ages and settings within those two regions.

The full tour commenced when the group assembled in Johannesburg, South Africa on the evening of Sunday 18 April, 2010 and ended in Carajás, Pará, Brazil on the evening of Friday 30 April.

Participants were able to take any 3 or more days, up to the full tour, as suited their interests or availability, joining and leaving the tour at appropiate locations along the route.

In addition to deposit visits, the tour included two expert workshops, one in Johannesburg, South Africa, the second, a classroom and field workshop spread over two days in the Quadrilátero Ferrífero district of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Both were led by internationally renowned experts.

Photo Album - See who took the tour and what they saw

The countries/regions and deposits visited were as follows:

South Africa

• Johannesburg Workshop - South African Iron Deposits, an overview classroom workshop led by internationally renowned expert Professor Nic Beukes at the University of Johannesburg ..... Monday 19 April, 2010.

• Sishen Iron Deposit - a unit of strongly ferruginous chert breccia that grades upwards into a disturbed section of the Early Palaeoproterozoic Manganore banded iron formation, wedged between the underlying thick Campbellrand carbonates and the unconformity at the base of the Mid to Late Palaeoproterozoic Gamagara Formation clastic sequence. The iron formation and Campbellrand carbonates are part of the Transvaal Supergroup, deposited between ~2.4 and 2.1 Ga within the Transvaal Basin ..... Tuesday 20 April, 2010.

• Khumani Iron Deposit - mining i). laminated hematitic ore of the Manganore banded iron formation, as at Sishen, and ii). conglomerate ore at the base of the unconformably overlying Gamagara formation ..... Wednesday 21 April, 2010.

Travelling from the Northwest Cape Province, South Africa, to Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil ..... Thursday 22 & Friday 23 April, 2010.

Quadrilátero Ferrífero, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Mining Iron Ore at Carajas

• Quadrilátero Ferrífero Classroom and Field Workshops - led by Dr Carlos Alberto Rosiére of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais to study the geology, structure, setting and iron formations of the host successions to the major iron deposits of the district. The ~6000 m thick, ~2.58 to 2.10 Ga host Minas Supergroup is a sedimentary pile composed of various clastic, carbonate and chemical-sedimentary units, deposited as a continental marine sequence ..... Saturday 24 & Sunday 25 April, 2010.

• Vargem Grande Complex in the western low-strain domain of the Quadrilátero Ferrífero, visiting the Capitão do Mato, Tamanduá and Abóboras mines over a very full day ..... Monday 26 April, 2010.

• Mariana Complex in the eastern high-strain domain, largely characterised by soft, foliated, deformed ore, visiting the Alegría and Fazendao mines over another long day ..... Tuesday 27 April, 2010.

Travelling from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, to Carajás, Pará, Brazil Wednesday 28 April, 2010.

Carajás District, Pará Brazil

• Carajás Complex - involving an expert workshop presented by Vale staff, followed by traverses and drill core study of the sequence and ore in the N4E and N4W mines. The Carajás ores lie within the ~2.7 Ga Grão Pará Group, which is composed of meta-basalts, meta-sediments, ironstones and lesser meta-rhyolites. The ore deposits are hosted by an ~300 to 400 m thick banded chert-hematite banded iron formation, sandwiched between thick lower and upper volcanic units ..... Thursday 29 and Friday 30 April, 2010.

The tour ended in Carajás in the late afternoon of Friday 30 April. The group members had each made their own bookings to fly out of Carajás to disperse around the world.

The tour was planned, organised, managed and escorted by Mike Porter of Porter GeoConsultancy Pty Limited.