Quartz Boulders

This mining license spread over 40 square kilometers area is in the province of Chami, which are about 350 km. from the capital city of Nouakchott and 150 km from the port city of Nouadhibou. Geological mapping and extensive trenching (more than 20 km) led to a mineable proven (measured) reserve of over 725,000 million tons of quartz mineral considering top 2.7-meter depth in the licensed area. Pits (up to 20 m depth) have been opened at 33 locations in the licensed area. Quartz veins of varying dimension have been observed up to a maximum thickness of 8 m and height of 10 m. These vein runs in to more than kilometer distances. The deposit is by and large in the form of white milky to glassy crystalline boulders and at certain points smoky / colored quartz. The boulder size varies to a large extent starting from lower than 500 mm to more than 3000 mm.

Resource quality

There is variability in terms of quality of quartz (silica content ranging between 98.00 – 99.9 % and color ranging between white crystalline / amorphous / milky to grey (smoky), black, yellow, red, etc.). Big (> 1 m) boulders are often found along with small (< 0.5 m) boulders. The resource can be subdivided broadly in to three types based on its application:

i. High purity quartz (> 99.8 % silica) finds application in making EMC-filler (semi conductors), telecommunication, high temperature lamp tubing, solar panel, fiber optics, crucibles, etc.

ii. High quality quartz (> 99 % silica and white in color) finds application in making raw material for engineered stone.

iii. Standard quartz (< 99 % silica) finds application in making glass and ceramic industries, Ferro silicon, etc.

Some of the high quality quartz samples from promising pits were sent to DORFNER / ANZAPLAN in Germany for evaluation in terms of quality and process ability. They confirmed highest purification to IOTA 4 standards and describe the deposit as one of the top five deposits in the world.