The Fairbreeze paleo dune complex is an elongated body extending south-southwestward from the town of Mtunzini for about 12 kilometers, reaching a maximum width of about two kilometers and a maximum elevation of 109 meters. Surface drainages have dissected the deposit into five discrete ore bodies, Fairbreeze A, B, C, C-Extension and D. The deposit is hosted by fine-grained sand and silt in a north-northeast trending complex of strandline/paleo dune couplets two kilometers inland from the modem coastline.

Fairbreeze is part of a regional near-shore, coast-parallel corridor of terraces and dunes composed of reddish-colored sands, the “Berea Red Sands,” along the southeastern coast of Africa from Durban to Mombasa. As with most heavy mineral sand deposits, iron-titanium oxides, rutile, zircon and other heavy minerals in the HM assemblage at Fairbreeze are inherited from their source rock provenance and modified by selective sorting during deposition. The Natal Metamorphic Province and younger rift-related basalts are interpreted as the primary source for the Fairbreeze heavy minerals. Terrestrial weathering of terrace deposits to oxidize iron minerals, followed by a period of extensive reworking of coastal sediment by static sea levels completed the formation of the Fairbreeze deposit.

The Fairbreeze deposits span 526 ha, with a total length of more than 15 km, striking 34 0, and reaching 630 m in width. Generally, the different ore bodies have depths close to 30m, and the elevation drops from around the 10m amsl in the southwest to around 70m amsl in the northeast.

Heavy minerals are disseminated in the dune systems with general preference of higher concentrations at the ridge of the dunes.

The Fairbreeze deposit is hosted by deeply weathered “Berea-type” sands which are mined using a combination of track dozers and a hydraulic mining technique.

Primary mining method: Hydraulic mining
Hydraulic Mining - At our Fairbreeze mine in KZN, we employ a hydraulic mining method for mineral sands due to the topography of the ore body and the ore characteristics. A jet of high-pressure water is aimed at the mining face, thereby cutting into and loosening the sand so that it collapses on the floor. The water acts as a carrier medium for the sand, due to the high fines (mineral particles that are too fine to be economically extracted and other materials that remain after the valuable fraction of an ore has been separated from the uneconomic fraction) content contained in the ore body. The slurry generated by the hydraulic monitors flows to a collection sump where oversize material is removed and the slurry is then pumped to the primary concentration plant.

Secondary mining method
Use of earth moving equipment (excavators, bulldozers, dump trucks) for certain activities:
• Bush clearing and topsoil stripping;
• Stripping barren areas in orebody;
• Rehabilitation - once area mined and filled with sand tailings: shaping, covering with layer of reconstituted soil and topsoil and vegetation.

The mining operation is currently active in Fairbreeze CX. Fairbreeze C has been depleted.

The KZN operations have an open pit hydraulic mine at Fairbreeze with a primary gravity concentration plant, a mineral separation plant at nearby Empangeni alongside a two-furnace smelter complex, and export facilities at the port of Richards Bay.

Processing
Both wet and dry mining techniques utilize wet concentrator plants to produce a high grade of heavy mineral concentrate (typically approximately 90% to 98% heavy mineral content). Screened ore is first deslimed, a process by which slimes are separated from larger particles of minerals, and then washed through a series of spiral separators that use gravity to separate the heavy mineral sands from lighter materials, such as quartz. Residue from the concentration process is pumped back into either the open pits or slimes dams for rehabilitation and water recovery. Water used in the process is recycled into a clean water dam with any additional water requirements made up from pit dewatering or rainfall.

Miner ........