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Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority

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Figure 5: The MIR mound in the TAG hydrothermal field. •1 - station and its number; 2 - the<br />

lateral extent of the sulphides mound (a), conventional boundaries between zones (b); 3 -<br />

zones: Cu (a), Zn (b), Fe-Si (c); 4 – sulphides chimneys: Py-Cp (a), Sp-Op (b), Bn-Cp-Op (c);<br />

5 – altered sulphides breccias; 6 – oxide mineralisation: Lm-Op (a), OxMn (b); 7 - depth (m).<br />

Metallurgical testing of the 6 large volume samples of the zinc and<br />

copper massive sulphides provided the following results:<br />

- Chalcocite-bornite-chalcopyrite sulphides could be metallurgically<br />

processed without preliminary enrichment;<br />

- The zinc and copper/zinc sulphides need to be concentrated before<br />

metallurgical processing. Depending on the degree of oxidation of<br />

the samples, 75-93% of the copper could be extracted, 75-97% for<br />

zinc, 32-83% for gold and 68-89% for silver.<br />

INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 183

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