The heavy mineral sand deposit is located on the southwest coast of Madagascar within the Mesozoic Morondava Basin along the eastern margin of a coastal plain juxtaposed to an Eocene limestone scarp. The coastal plain is underlain by limestone and overlain by a sequence of progressively shallowing beach and lagoon unconsolidated clastic sediments and subaerial dunes which successively overstep and onlap the basement limestone scarp in the east.

The deposit is hosted within a stabilized mega-dune system which is arrested along the basement scarp slope and extends for approximately 20 km north northwest south southeast. The entire dune unit is mineralized by an assemblage of ilmenite, zircon, rutile and monazite concentrated within the unit by aeolian winnowing. The unit generally thickens westwards away from the scarp slope from 3m to 60m. The deposit anisotropy parallels the scarp slope, with higher HM grades concentrated along the megadune crest line.

Upper sand unit (USU) - a well sorted, fine-grained, unconsolidated aeolian sand containing approximately 4% slime or clay (SL) and approximately 5% HM. The HM is primarily ilmenite, with secondary zircon and rutile. The USU can also contain a surface silt unit (SSU) within broad topographical drainage features, and another silty sand unit (USSU) at the base of the USU profile.

Intermediate clay sand unit (ICSU) - a thin unit of high slime content with a dark red to orange-brown sandy clay and c ........

The deposit is planned to be mined from surface with no minimum dimensions.

The selected mining method is conventional dozer-fed DMU (Dry mining unit) with in-pit tailings deposition, enabling a short 3 to 4-year cycle from initial land clearing to final rehabilitation.

Planned mining activity cycle:
• Scrub clearing – removal of trees and scrub by bulldozers, excavators and dump trucks. Stockpiled for community use or mulching.
• Topsoil stripping – using bulldozers, excavators, and dump trucks, topsoil is stockpiled for later rehabilitation or directly replaced onto rehabilitation areas. The aim is to preserve seed viability by minimizing time in stockpile.
• Mining – utilizing D11 bulldozers, in 200m x 100m blocks, into the DMU with some excavator assistance. Run of mine feed (ROM) enters the DMU through a grizzly (400mm screen), passes up the DMU conveyor which discharges through a slurry chute onto a 4mm screen. The screen undersize is pumped to the WCP (Wet concentration plant). Oversize is disposed of in the pit void.
• Coarse tailing – Quartz sand separated by the WCP is pumped, initially to an out of pit storage facility and later to the mining pit void where a moveable tails stacker de-waters the slurry. Water is recovered and pumped back to the WCP. Sand is stacked to a height approximating the planned finished surface level and then formed into fine tails evaporation ponds by bulldozer.
• Fine tailing – Flocculated cl ........

- subscription is required.

- subscription is required.