Geological characteristics and preliminary economic evaluation of iron ore deposit within the Chuos formation in northwest of Namibia

There is a large scale of iron ore deposit within the Chuos formation in northwest of Namibia.The iron ore was formed in about 730 Ma of Neoproterozoic.Due to the influence of snowball earth, many large iron ores formed in the world during this period.By analyzing the major element of iron ore of Chuos formation, it consists mainly of Fe₂O₃ and SiO₂, the SiO₂ content is high.Tracing element characteristics indicates that Co is enriched in iron ore and Rb is relatively deficient.The characteristics of rare earth elements indicate that the total amount of rare earth elements in iron ore is relatively low, and there is a similar REE distribution model.The light rare earth has loss relative to heavy rare earth, slight positive Eu anomaly and obvious negative Ce anomaly.The source of iron ore is characterized by both terrestrial sources sediments and marine sedimentary deposits.The slight negative anomaly of Ce reflects the low oxidizing environment of seawater during mineralization, but the slight anomaly of Eu indicates that the undersea cryohydrothermal is involved in the deposit of iron ore.The iron ore resources amount to 2 billion tons, average grade 30%, potential economic value is 70 billion US dollars.There is strictly environmental protection law in Namibia, the cost of land acquisition for mining is high, the infrastructure is poor, and the costs for mining and the ore transportation will be high.All these lead to Namibia iron ore price advantage may not be obvious.This paper argues that if the region cannot find other, more valuable, co-associated minerals in the future, the prospect of the mining of these iron ores under the current technical and economic conditions is not clear.