Worth over one trillion! No. 1 in Asia! They discovered 4 world-class manganese mines in Guizhou...

On September 13, 2024, Zhou Qi, director of the Bedrock Mineral Exploration Engineering and Technology Center of the Ministry of Natural Resources, researcher, and chief scientist of the Guizhou Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, gave a speech entitled "Traveling Through the Green Mountains in Search of Breakthroughs" at the Science Popularization my country Starry Sky Forum with the theme of "Inheriting the Spirit of Scientists and Lighting up the Light of Geology". He told us about his and his team's struggle for more than 40 years to find mineral deposits for our country and achieve major breakthroughs.

The following is an excerpt from Zhou Qi's speech:

Hello everyone, I am Zhou Qi, Chief Scientist of Guizhou Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Exploration and Development, Director of the Engineering Technology Innovation Center for Mineral Resources Exploration in Bedrock Areas of the Ministry of Natural Resources. I have been engaged in strategic mineral resource exploration and scientific research for a long time. Today I would like to share with you the story of how my team and I traveled all over the mountains to find manganese ore for our country and achieved a major breakthrough.

What is Manganese Ore and Why is it Important?

In 1774, Swedish chemist and metallurgist Gunn discovered the element manganese by reducing metallic manganese from a mineral called pyrolusite and named it "manganese".

Manganese is an element of the seventh group of the fourth period in the periodic table. It is a silvery-white brittle metal. It is one of the trace elements necessary for humans and plays an important role in human health. The density of manganese is 7.3g/cm³ per square centimeter, the melting point is 1244℃, and the boiling point is 2097℃. In nature, manganese has valence states II, III, IV, and VII, among which valence states II and IV are the most common. Manganese is very easy to oxidize in the air. Under heating conditions, powdered manganese can react chemically with chlorine, bromine, iodine, sulfur, silicon, and carbon.

"No manganese, no steel." Manganese is the basic raw material for the steel industry. It is also an important raw material to support the development of new energy, new materials and other strategies as well as emerging industries. It is a strategic mineral resource that is related to national economy, people's livelihood and national security.

Manganese ore is one of the most complex mineral species in nature. There are more than 150 known manganese-containing ores. The manganese minerals mined industrially are mainly rhodochrosite, as well as pyrolusite, psilomelane, manganese ore, hausmannite, fusantrite and sulfomanganese ore, etc.

The picture comes from Zhou Qi's speech PPT

The world's manganese ore resources are mainly distributed in a few countries in the southern hemisphere. High-quality manganese ore is mainly concentrated in a few countries such as South Africa, Australia, Brazil, and Gabon, mainly manganese oxide ore.

China's manganese ore is mainly distributed in southern China, such as Guizhou, Guangxi, Hunan, Chongqing, Hubei, Yunnan and other provinces (cities), and also in northern Liaoning, Hebei, Shaanxi and Xinjiang. There are more than 430 manganese ore deposits discovered in the country, but they are mainly small and medium-sized.

From the 1980s to the 2010s of this century, after the outcropping and semi-outcropping manganese mines were exhausted, China's hidden manganese mines have been difficult to conquer.

How was the difficulty in finding hidden manganese mines overcome?

China's manganese ore was mainly formed in the Nanhua Period 660 million years ago, the Devonian Period 417 million years ago and the Permian Period 260 million years ago, all of which were rhodochrosite.

Rhodochrosite was first discovered in Argentina, so it is also called "Argentine Stone". Its beautiful color makes it known as "Inca Rose". Rhodochrosite crystals are very beautiful. For example, the rhodochrosite crystals known as "Chinese Queen" discovered in Cangwu County, Wuzhou, Guangxi in 2009 shocked both China and foreign countries.

"Empress of China". Image from Zhou Qi's speech PPT

But most people have never heard of vesicular rhodochrosite .

From an aesthetic point of view, bubble-shaped rhodochrosite is far from being comparable to rhodochrosite crystals such as the "Queen of China", but its scientific significance is very prominent. Because its discovery not only reveals a new type of manganese deposit - the effusive sedimentary manganese deposit, but also opens the door to the protection of hidden manganese ore resources in eastern Guizhou, helping us discover the largest manganese ore cluster in Asia, achieving a major breakthrough in manganese ore prospecting, and reshaping the distribution pattern of manganese ore resources in China.

The picture comes from Zhou Qi's speech PPT

How this mysterious "bubble-shaped rhodochrosite" was discovered has to start from a rare natural laboratory - the Datangpo manganese mining area in Guizhou.

There is no shortcut to the mineral deposit research that supports mineral exploration, and its laboratory is mainly in the field. The Datangpo manganese mining area is located in Songtao County, Guizhou Province, and is the place where the famous Datangpo manganese mine was discovered. In 1958, my predecessor who worked in the 103rd Geological Brigade of the Guizhou Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources accidentally discovered it through mass mining reports. Its discovery led to major breakthroughs in the exploration of outcrop and semi-outcrop manganese mines in the adjacent areas of Guizhou, Hunan, and Chongqing (then part of Sichuan) in China from the 1960s to the 1980s, and a total of more than 100 million tons of manganese ore resources were submitted.

Although the Songtao Datangpo manganese mining area is an old mining area and its shallow manganese ore resources have been mined out, the mining area has good outcrops and rich geological phenomena. My team and I have conducted in-depth research in the Datangpo manganese mining area for a long time and discovered many rare geological phenomena closely related to manganese mineralization, such as bubble-like structures, gushing structures, diapir structures, turtleback structures, and cryptoexplosive breccia pipes and syngenetic faults in rhodochrosite bodies. These geological phenomena are difficult to explain with the traditional manganese ore exogenous sedimentary mineralization theory, which brings us opportunities to carry out prospecting research for hidden manganese deposits.

The picture comes from Zhou Qi's speech PPT

We mainly rely on the Datangpo manganese ore area as a natural laboratory to carry out long-term research on the "Datangpo-style" manganese ore mineralization theory. Through the implementation of a number of national and provincial and ministerial scientific research projects and national integrated exploration area prospecting breakthrough projects, we finally established the original theory of manganese ore spill sedimentation mineralization.

The picture comes from Zhou Qi's speech PPT

We found that the "Datangpo-type" manganese deposit in the Nanhua Period is a completely new type of manganese deposit - the exudative sedimentary manganese deposit. No manganese deposits of the same or similar type have been reported internationally.

Vertically, this type of deposit will show building block ore phase zoning based on the diapir-effusive structural system from bottom to top. On the plane, there will be concentric elliptical ore phase plane zoning of rich rhodochrosite zone → medium-grade rhodochrosite zone → low-grade rhodochrosite zone.

The picture comes from Zhou Qi's speech PPT

Through further research, we found that the exudative sedimentary manganese deposits all appear in the center of the basin, rather than at the edge of the basin as the traditional manganese ore exogenous sedimentary mineralization theory believes.

The picture comes from Zhou Qi's speech PPT

We also conducted in-depth research on the prototype of the residual basin, and used three-dimensional geological modeling, big data mining and reflection seismic detection technology to reveal the mineralization mechanism of this type of deposit. This type of manganese deposit has a ore-conducting structure in the deep, that is, the transmission channel of manganese ore-forming materials, which reaches the top of the upper mantle. The multi-cycle large-scale effusive sedimentary mineralization mechanism controlled by "rift basin-transmission channel-manganese-containing fluid" for this type of manganese ore was revealed. It broke through the theoretical constraints that large-scale mineralization of manganese ore is mainly exogenous sedimentary mineralization in the world, and provided original theoretical support for the prospecting and exploration of this type of manganese ore.

The picture comes from Zhou Qi's speech PPT

Technological innovation promotes efficient exploration of manganese ore resources

To explore hidden super-large manganese deposits of exhalative sedimentary type, two key points should be grasped: first, the manganese ore-forming structure should be accurately identified, namely the ore-guiding structure, ore-matching structure and ore-containing structure; second, the interference of epigenetic structures after the manganese ore formation should be eliminated.

What specific methods have we adopted to accurately identify manganese ore mineralization structures? Mainly relying on the manganese ore spill sedimentation mineralization system model we created, we further developed geological prospecting prediction models, audio magnetotelluric prediction models, and geochemical quantitative prediction models. Based on the model-data joint drive, manganese ore big data multi-objective progressive intelligent prediction technology and digital exploration technology, etc., these technologies can realize green and efficient exploration of manganese ore.

The picture comes from Zhou Qi's speech PPT

By applying the above-mentioned theoretical and technical system of hidden manganese ore prospecting and exploration in the manganese ore integrated exploration area in the national prospecting breakthrough strategic action from 2011 to 2020, we finally discovered and submitted four world-class hidden super-large manganese deposits in Guizhou Songtao Pujue, Songtao Highland, Songtao Daotuo and Songtao Taoziping in the eastern part of Guizhou.

In addition, through cross-era and cross-regional utilization, we have doubled the resource reserves in the Zunyi Permian manganese mine exploration area in Guizhou. Since 2013, our team has applied the prospecting theory and technology of this project to the Zunyi Manganese Mine National Preparatory Area, and found that the Permian "Zunyi-style" manganese ore is similar to the Nanhua "Datangpo-style" manganese ore, which has changed the traditional understanding of the exogenous deposition of manganese in the manganese deposit in the past, and also achieved a breakthrough in the prospecting of hidden manganese ore, adding more than 70 million tons of manganese ore resources, doubling the manganese ore resources in the region.

The significant breakthrough in manganese ore prospecting has provided resource support for the establishment of a national strategic emerging industry cluster - the new functional materials industry cluster in Tongren City, Guizhou Province. Six large manganese mining enterprises and a number of new energy battery and new material enterprises have been built and put into production, with significant economic and social benefits.

The picture comes from Zhou Qi's speech PPT

The survival and development of mankind is inseparable from the development and utilization of mineral resources. It can be said that the history of human civilization evolution is the history of the development and utilization of mineral resources. Today, we are in the information age. The Chinese nation will achieve a great rejuvenation and needs more mineral resources to support and guarantee it. My team and I will continue to explore the mountains and find breakthroughs, strive to find more, larger and richer mines for the motherland, and continue to make new contributions.

Planning and production

Author: Zhou Qi, Director of the Bedrock Mineral Exploration Engineering Technology Center of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Researcher, Chief Scientist of the Guizhou Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources

Editors: Zhang Yang, Yang Yaping

Proofread by Xu Lai and Lin Lin