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Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority

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4.2.2 Where marine phosphorite deposits are found<br />

8.<br />

Present-day locations of phosphorite deposits are shown on Figure<br />

Relatively rich deposits are known to occur in areas such as off the<br />

coast of Baja California, southern California, and east of New Zealand.<br />

However, in many places they consist of cemented nodules scattered<br />

within sediments, and are too sparsely distributed to be recoverable. Their<br />

phosphate content of known deposits varies considerably and is seldom<br />

more than 29 wt. % (Baturin and Savenko, 1985; Baturin 1998; Rao and<br />

Nair, 1991).<br />

The large, commercially valuable deposits of Nauru, Ocean and<br />

Christmas Islands are well known, and there is the potential for similar<br />

deposits to occur on shallow (less than 120 m deep) submerged<br />

seamounts, within the Pacific region, which were above sea level prior to<br />

the last sea level rise (Bentor, 1980). There are also potential and low grade<br />

INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 688

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