As the world scrambles to secure supplies of critical minerals and rare earth elements, some prospectors are turning to old defunct mining operations for a chance at new riches
Tellurium isn’t mined as by itself as a ‘solo mineral’. Currently, most tellurium is collected as a by-product from copper mining. Simon Jowitt, economic geologist at University of Nevada Las Vegas said, “The fundamental question is: how much tellurium is out there?”
Jowitt explained, “We what we do is take that information – which tells us how big the deposit is, how many million tons of ore or mineralization – and we combine that with information that’s published elsewhere on the concentration of tellurium and the deposit.” The researchers can then calculate an estimate for tellurium.
Jowitt says this is a minimum estimate, because not every gold, copper, and nickel mine in the U.S. and Canada had appropriate data available. While their study focused on active mines, Jowitt noted that extracting critical metals from spoils piles at old mines can be another win-win situation. “There’s a whole scope for extracting all sorts of metals from mining waste,” he said. Old tailings and slag have potential for metal extraction. “There’s potential for all sorts of wealth from waste,” he said. While extracting metals from tailings can be economically profitable, there’s also an environmental benefit.
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