Tag: Laterite deposit

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Studying cobalt mineralisation of the Nkamouna deposit at Diamond Light Source | CoG3 Consortium

Dr Paul F. Schofield is leading the part of the CoG3 project that focuses on describing and characterising new ore types, with an aim of developing new ways of extracting cobalt (Co). He reports back on a visit to Diamond Light Source.

In early September the Museum CoG3 team met with Prof Fred Mosselmans, a fellow member of the CoG3 consortium from Diamond Light Source. The team hoped to use Diamond’s facilities to study how cobalt is incorporated into the minerals of the Nkamouna cobalt-nickel laterite deposit in Cameroon.

Aerial view Diamond Light Source
Aerial view of Diamond Light Source at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Oxfordshire

The Diamond Light Source facility provides very intense, high-brightness beams of X-rays that are focused to produce powerful microscopes. Not only do these microscopes allow us to image the distribution of cobalt in natural materials with nanometre scale resolution, but they also enable us to measure how the cobalt atoms are actually bound into the atomic structure of their hosting minerals.

Continue reading “Studying cobalt mineralisation of the Nkamouna deposit at Diamond Light Source | CoG3 Consortium”

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Sample collection from the Nkamouna Deposit in Cameroon | CoG3 Consortium

CoG3 project member and University of Manchester PhD student Sulaiman Mulroy reports back on a recent fieldwork trip to Cameroon in West Africa.

In June 2016 I travelled to Cameroon to collect samples from the Nkamouna laterite, one of a number of lateritic ore deposits formed on top of lenticular serpentinite rocks, which cover around 240km2 in the East of Cameroon.

Team members
Gideon, myself and Karrimo

 

In total the region hosts seven lateritic ore bodies, covering ~1250km2, though only two have been subjected to rigorous exploration: Nkamouna has proven and probable reserves of 54Mt at grades of 0.25% Co and 1.7% Ni, and further north, at Mada, 150Mt of inferred resources of similar grade are believed to be hosted in the laterite.

Continue reading “Sample collection from the Nkamouna Deposit in Cameroon | CoG3 Consortium”

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Annual Science Advisory Board meeting | CoG3 Consortium

Dr Paul Schofield gives an account of the CoG3 project’s annual Science Advisory Board meeting, held on the 6 and 7 June 2016 at the Bangor Acidophile Research Team (BART) centre, Bangor University.

The overall purpose of our Science Advisory Board is to assess and advise upon the strategic direction of the team’s project, CoG3: Geology, Geochemistry and Geomicrobiology of Cobalt. It also ensures that all components of the project stay focused on their objectives and remain sufficiently integrated so that the entire project can deliver the desired impact.

Ores presentation
Dr Gideon Lambiv describes the ore zone at the Nkamouna laterite deposit in Cameroon

The meeting was hosted by Barrie Johnson and Sarah Smith of Bangor University. Continue reading “Annual Science Advisory Board meeting | CoG3 Consortium”

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A visit to the UK’s synchrotron facility | CoG3 Consortium

Researcher Dr Agnieszka Dybowska describes a recent visit to Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility, during which the CoG3 team completed their first detailed spectroscopic analysis of laterite samples.

On Thursday 28 April we headed to Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire, hoping to carry out atomic scale analysis of a sample from the Shevchenko laterite deposit in Kazakhstan – one of the samples we’re investigating as a potential new source of cobalt.

Diamond Light Source
The synchrotron building at Diamond Light Source, Oxfordshire

For some of us this was the first visit to a synchrotron facility, and definitely a great experience!

Continue reading “A visit to the UK’s synchrotron facility | CoG3 Consortium”