Controls on the Distribution of Gallium in the Nechalacho REE Deposit, NWT, Canada

摘要

Despite the numerous industrial and scientific applications of gallium, its behavior in nature and the processes that concentrate it to potentially economic levels are poorly understood. Although the main supply of this metal is as a by-product of the mining of bauxite, it is also concentrated by magmatic-hydrothermal processes in peralkaline igneous systems. Here we report the results of a study of the distribution of gallium and the controls on this distribution in the Nechalacho rare metal deposit, Northwest Territories, Canada, which has been shown to contain significant reserves of this critical metal.