Plants absorb large quantities of phosphorus from the soil, and annual applications of phosphate fertilizer are needed to maintain productivity of cropland. Phosphorus is also an important nutrient for human and animal nutrition. It is necessary for the growth and repair of all body tissues and for the proper growth of bones and teeth, where about 85 percent of phosphorus in the human body is found.
Phosphorus compounds are essential for energy production and storage in the body. Sedimentary phosphate rock deposits often contain fossilized remains of ancient fish and aquatic animals, such as manatees, sharks and whales. Phosphate rock is used to make phosphate compounds, which are used in applications such as food additives, detergents and herbicides. Phosphorus was first discovered in by Hennig Brand in Germany, when he recovered it from urine. In addition, apatite can be used as a probe to determine the petrogenetic evolution of granites, and significant amounts of research were devoted to the use of apatite in granitic rocks to distinguish between S- and I-type granites [ 4 ],[ 71 ].
Apatite F and Cl concentrations can reflect the enrichment or depletion of halogens within the host granitoids, with apatite associated with slab dehydration containing more Cl and less F, whereas apatites related to magmas formed by partial melting of the crust contain less Cl and more F.
In recent sedimentary systems, the major phosphorus deposition occurs within upwelling zones at continental margins. Upwelling of deep ocean waters rich in phosphorus triggers high biological production in the photic zone and eventually high concentration of phosphorus in organic-rich sediments, as in recent Namibian and Peruan shelves [ 72 ],[ 73 ], [ 74 ],[ 75 ].
The phosphorus cycle is quite different from the nitrogen and sulfur cycles in which phosphorus is present in only one oxidation state and it forms no gases stable in biosphere or atmosphere. Also, in contrast to nitrogen and sulfur, substantial proportions of phosphorus in soil appear in inorganic form [ 76 ],[ 77 ]. About 10 Mt of phosphorus are released by weathering of apatite annually. Phosphates are precipitated by calcium in alkaline soils and most of phosphate is adsorbed on aluminum and iron oxides in acidic soils.
Phosphates are most readily available in slightly acidic to neutral soil. Much of such phosphorus in surface soils appears in organic matter. This phosphorus is used repeatedly by recycling in plants and organisms that decompose the plant detritus. Little amount of phosphorus is lost by leaching through soils, but the erosion losses of soil particles and the plant detritus carried off to aquatic systems may be substantial [ 76 ].
Major natural cycle of phosphorus a and the contribution of the man to the cycle b [ 78 ]. The availability of phosphorus is a major factor limiting the biomass production in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Mycorrhizas are efficient scavengers of phosphorus for plants growing in soils with limited availability of this element. The phosphorus fertilization in agricultural lands can have detrimental effect, as it increases phosphate amounts in the runoff soil resulting in the accumulation of phosphate in aquatic plants and algal growth.
If the decomposers of plants and algae use practically all oxygen from water, the habitat becomes unsuitable for fish and other aquatic animals. The process of abundant nutrient-induced biomass production in lakes and rivers and its decay to deplete the water oxygen is called the eutrophication [ 25 ],[ 76 ],[ 78 ]. At least millions years before humankind exerted any influence on the cycles of phosphorus, the pattern had already been established Fig.
Phosphorus was continuously leached from igneous rocks as the rocks were weathered to sedimentary deposits and this released phosphorus flowed to the seas, which had long since become saturated with phosphorus. Each new addition causes a similar quantity of phosphorus to precipitate as sediment. If the precipitate formed when an island sea had invaded a land area, the new sediment became landlocked.
The new landlocked sedimentary deposits are more easily leached than igneous rocks from which they are derived. When the seas recede sufficiently to expose the new sediments to the greater solvent action of fresh water, the sediments begin to weather and the cycle is complete. Best estimates of the cycle time of phosphorus in the oceans today are in the range of 50, years.
Natural and artificial cycles of phosphorus [ 25 ]. If man made a significant alteration in the cycles of phosphorus, it had an impact on the cycles of fresh surface waters.
The detergent phosphates have been blamed for degrading freshwater lakes and there is no doubt that several lakes have been overabundant with phosphates and sewage. Sewage treatment will alleviate most of the problems associated with point-source loading of lakes [ 78 ]. The overall natural and artificial cycles involving phosphorus are introduced in Fig.
Weathering and leaching processes from millions of years ago led to the transfer of phosphate to rivers and oceans where it was concentrated in shells, bones and marine organism that were deposited on the sea floor. Subsequent uplift and other geological movements led to these accumulations becoming dry land deposits [ 25 ],[ 78 ]. Generally, weathering of apatite occurs synergistically through biotic and abiotic processes and leads to the release of mineral phosphate.
The main mechanism underlying the microbial phosphate solubilization is the secretion of organic acids that, by changing the soil pH and acting as chelators, may induce the dissolution of phosphorus from minerals and its release into the pore water of soils [ 79 ],[ 80 ]. The dissolution of apatite is described in Section 3. Apatite represents an important source of inorganic P for natural ecosystems and may favor the establishment of microbial communities able to exploit it [ 79 ].
The microorganisms can cause the fixation or immobilization of phosphate, either by promoting the formation of inorganic precipitates or by the assimilation of phosphate into organic cell constituents on intracellular polyphosphate granules. Insoluble forms of inorganic phosphorus, e. The mechanisms by which the microbes accomplish this solubilization vary [ 44 ]: The first mechanism may be the production of inorganic or organic acids that attack the insoluble phosphates.
The second mechanism may be the production of chelators such as gluconate and 2-ketogluconate, citrate, oxalate and lactate. All these chelators can complex the cation portion of insoluble phosphate salts and thus force their dissociation. The third mechanism of phosphate solubilization may be the reduction of iron in ferric phosphate, e.
The fourth mechanism is the production of hydrogen sulfide H 2 S , which can react with iron phosphate and precipitate it as iron sulfide, thereby mobilizing phosphate, as in the reaction [ 44 ]:.
Rhizobium [ 83 ]: specific group of bacteria that have the capability of symbiotic nitrogen fixation. Burkholderia [ 84 ]: aerobic, non-spore-forming bacteria. Burkholderia is very versatile and occupies a wide range of ecological niches.
Microbial rock weathering is common in all climate zones and usually acts very slowly [ 80 ]. The fission-track FT dating is a radiometric dating method 26 Radiometric dating techniques are, in general, complementary to one another, and each method produces an age with the special meaning, such as the last outgassing, the last melting accompanied by mixing with isotopically separate material and the last heating to remove the track. Fission-track dating is conceptually the simplest of several dating techniques that provide absolute measures of time from slow but statistically steady decay of radioactive nuclides [ 86 ].
Most radiometric dating processes are based on the statistical regularity of the decay of one parent radionuclide into a daughter nuclide, for example, 40 K into 40 Ar, 87 Rb into 87 Sr or U , U and Th into Pb, Pb and Pb, respectively. The age of sample can be then determined by measuring relative abundance of parent and daughter in any pair. Fission track can also be created artificially induced track by irradiating the mineral specimen with thermal neutrons in a nuclear [ 88 ].
The mineral grain is ground and polished to expose a flat surface inside the crystal. It is then immersed in a chemical etchant that preferentially attacks the regions of damage, widening them and making them visible under optical microscope. The track appears in the apatite torch readily in 20 to 30 s when immersed in diluted nitric acid [ 88 ].
This unique sensitivity of the apatite fission-track system is now of considerable economic importance due to the coincidence between the temperature range over which annealing occurs and that over which liquid hydrocarbons are generated.
Other applications include the determination of timing of emplacement and the thermal history of ore deposits. There is abundant literature on both fission-track dating and its use in evaluating the tectonic and thermal history of rocks [ 6 ],[ 89 ],[ 90 ],[ 91 ]. Apatite is the most frequently used material for fission-track dating [ 92 ].
These processes govern the landscape evolution, influence the climate and generate the natural resources essential to the well-being of mankind [ 85 ],[ 95 ]. On Earth, magmatic volatiles i. H 2 O, F, Cl, C-species and S-species play an important role in the physicochemical processes that control thermal stabilities of minerals and melts, in magma eruptive processes and in the transportation of economically important metals.
On the Moon, magmatic volatiles in igneous systems are poorly understood, and the magmatic volatile inventory of lunar interior, aside from being very low, is not well constrained. Although the Moon is a volatile-depleted planetary body, there is evidence indicating that magmatic volatiles have played a role in igneous processes on the Moon.
Specifically, magmatic volatiles were implicated as the propellants that drove fire-fountain eruptions, which produced the pyroclastic glass deposits encountered at the Apollo 15 and 17 sites [ 96 ]. That is supported by recent discoveries of water-rich apatite from lunar mare basalts [ 97 ],[ 98 ].
Apatite was found in a large number of samples of igneous lunar rocks, although it typically occurred in only trace amounts and is typically reported as coexisting with REE-merrillite [ Mg,Fe 2 REE 2 Ca 16 P 14 O 56 ], and those two minerals make up the primary mineralogical budget for P on the Moon [ 96 ]. Merrillite, also known as the mineral whitlockite or more precious and dehydrogenated whitlockite [ 99 ], is one of the main phosphate minerals, along with apatite, which occur in lunar rocks, in Martian meteorites and in many other groups of meteorites.
The structure of lunar merrillite a [ ] and terrestrial whitlockite b. Lunar merrillite Fig. In whitlockite, H is an essential element and allows the charge balance. Hydrogen is incorporated into the whitlockite atomic arrangement by disordering one of the phosphate tetrahedra and forming the PO 3 OH group. Lunar merrillite is devoid of hydrogen; thus, no disordered tetrahedral groups exist. A number of sources potentially contributed to the overall inventory of lunar water, including primary indigenous water acquired during lunar accretion, late addition of water through asteroidal and cometary impacts and solar wind implanting H into lunar soils.
By contrast, the average H isotopic composition of apatites in norite is lower. The content of water in norite parental melts provides strong evidence that the magmas involved in secondary crust production on the Moon were hydrated, in agreement with recent findings of water in lunar ferroan anorthosites.
Water they contain, locked in the crystalline structure of apatite, is characterized by an H isotopic composition similar to that on Earth and in some carbonaceous chondrites [ ]. Apatite preserves a record of halogen and water fugacities that existed during the waning stages of crystallization of planetary magmas, when they became saturated in phosphates.
The thermodynamic formalism based on apatite-merrillite equilibria that makes it possible to compare the relative values of halogen and water fugacities in Martian, lunar and terrestrial basalts, accounting for possible differences in pressure, temperature and oxygen fugacities among the planets, was described by Douce and Roden [ ].
They showed that planetary bodies have distinctive ratios among volatile fugacities at apatite saturation and that these fugacities are, in some cases, related in a consistent way to volatile fugacities in the mantle magma sources. Their analysis shows that the Martian mantle parental to basaltic SNC meteorites was dry and poor in both fluorine and chlorine compared to the terrestrial mantle.
In comparison to the Earth and Mars, the Moon, and possibly the eucrite parent body too, appear to be strongly depleted not only in H 2 O but also in Cl 2 relative to H 2 O. The chlorine depletion is the strongest in mare basalts, perhaps reflecting an eruptive process characteristic with large-scale lunar magmatism [ ].
Mars does not recycle crustal materials via the plate tectonics. Hydrous primary igneous minerals, such as apatite and amphibole, are present in Martian meteorites here on Earth. As Nakhla was seen to fall on the Egyptian desert in , the terrestrial contamination is minimized in this meteorite.
The nakhlites are also among the least shocked Martian meteorites. Therefore, apatite within Nakhla could contain primordial Martian hydrogen isotope ratios. Vesta, as the second most massive asteroid, has long been perceived as anhydrous. Recent studies suggesting the presence of hydrated minerals and past subsurface water have challenged this long-standing perception.
The volatile components indicate the presence of apatite in eucrites. Eucritic apatite is fluorine rich with minor chlorine and hydroxyl calculated by difference [ ],[ ],[ ]. The search for phosphate rock deposits became a global effort in the 20th century as the demand for phosphate rocks increased. The development of deposits further intensified in the s and s. The world production reached its peak in — and then again in with over million metric tons mmt of the product. Phosphate rock mining has evolved over time, and worldwide, it relies on high volume and advanced technology using mainly open-pit mining methods and advanced transportation systems to move hundreds of millions of tons of overburden to produce hundreds of millions of tons of ore, which are beneficiated to produce approximately mmt of phosphate rock concentrate per year.
The concentrate of suitable grade and chemical quality is then used to produce phosphoric acid, the basis of many fertilizer and non-fertilizer products [ 23 ]. The world phosphate production rate since according to Jasinski [ ] and Abouzeid et al [ 20 ] is shown in Fig. Furthermore, it is commonly recognized that the high-quality reserves are being depleted expeditiously and that the prevailing management of phosphate, a finite non-renewable source, is not fully in accordance with the principles of sustainability.
The depletion of current economically exploitable reserves is estimated to be completed in some 60 to years. World phosphate production rate [ 20 ]. Preliminary estimates of phosphate rock reserves range from 15, mmt to over 1,, mmt, while the estimates of phosphate rock resources range from about 91, mmt to over 1,, mmt. Using available literature, the reserves of various countries were assessed in the terms of reserves of concentrate.
Phosphate rock prices will increase when the demand approaches the limits of supply. When the phosphate rock prices increase, some resources will become reserves, marginal mining projects will become viable and the production will be stimulated. In the future, fuel and fuel-related transportation costs may become even more important components in the world phosphate rock production scenario.
The political disruption is always an unknown factor, and it can profoundly influence the supply and demand for fertilizer raw materials on a worldwide basis [ 22 ]. It belongs to the most abundant and widely distributed uranyl phosphate minerals. Calcium atom in the interlayer is coordinated by seven H 2 O groups and two longer distances to uranyl apical O atoms.
Two symmetrically independent H 2 O groups are held in the structure only by hydrogen bonding. The bond-length-constrained refinement provides a crystal-chemically reasonable description of the hydrogen bonding. The examples of forms and the structure of mineral atunite [ ] viewed along the b-axis.
The mineral was named by Henry J. Brooke and William H. The examples of forms and the structure of mineral meta-atunite [ ] viewed along the b-axis. The structure of mineral Fig. Ca ions, surrounded by 12 oxygen and hydroxyl ions, lie in large cavities between the sheets. Each phosphate tetrahedron shares three corners with three Al octahedra from a trigonal ring in the sheet. The unshared corner is turned away from the trigonal hole towards the adjacent sheet to which it is hydrogen bonded.
The structure of mineral crandallite [ ] viewed along the c-axis. Named in by Marten H. The form and the structure of lazulite [ ] viewed along the c-axis. Millis of Lehi, Utah, who had collected the first specimens.
Monazite [ ],[ ]: is natural light rare-earth element phosphate that generally contains large amounts of uranium and thorium. The monazite-type compounds AXO 4 , Fig.
Monazite Fig. There are low-grade phosphatic beds on the Howqua River, and phosphate-bearing rock has been recorded in Cambrian tuffaceous beds on Fullarton Spur, near the Barkly River. Phosphate rock has been worked at Howes Creek, Goughs and Wappan, where there are grey to black fragments of phosphate rock in a breccia zone.
View the full list of industrial minerals. Geological and mining history of Victoria. To create your own maps online and in real time, plan exploration activities by viewing land status, or download GIS data to add to your own maps, visit GeoVic.
Contact us. Manage your licence Fossicking Location of resource licences Mineral licences Extractives industry work authority. The most important use of phosphate rock, though, is in the production of phosphate fertilizers for agriculture.
Most phosphate rock is mined using large-scale surface methods. In the past, underground mining methods played a greater role, but their contribution to world production is declining. Often extraction operations supply feed to a nearby fertilizer-processing complex for the production of downstream concentrated fertilizer products.
This method is employed widely in parts of the United States, Morocco and Russia.
0コメント