PRESENTATION OF THE DATA BASE : MARMIN

In 1993, IFREMER started to build a data base of marine mineral occurrences in the exclusive economic zones from the documentation collected year after year. The information was stored in a computerised data base, from which descriptive summary records are now edited.

The mineral occurrences file lists all known occurrences and deposits. · An occurrence is defined as a quoted presence of minerals in a determined location with insufficient information to designate it as a deposit. · A deposit is a well documented mineral occurrence that could be considered as a future objective for mining. An ore deposit is a well known deposit that can be mined in the present technical and economic conditions.

To facilitate access to the data, the records are presented by sequential numbers. Four indexes, ordered by geographic location (country, continent, ocean) or by commodities, help to find the sequential number of the corresponding mineral occurrence. The geographic indexes are completed by maps.

DESCRIPTION OF THE "OCCURRENCE" FILE

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Fiche

1. Sequential n°: Sequential number in the file.
2. Deposit Name: Name of the deposit or occurrence, generally name of the locality.
3. Occurrence, Deposit, Deposit/file: Type of occurrence: simple occurrence or well documented deposit. Existence of a special file for the deposit.
4. Commodities: List of contained commodities or substances (chemical symbol for metals).
5. Type of deposit: Deposit type determined from the information summarised in the "Typology" section and established following a check list that is still open and must be revised.
6. Country: Neighbouring country. 6 bis. Country Code according to UN standard abbreviations.
7. District: Geographic or administrative area in the country.
8. Administration: Legal status following the division of the Law of the Sea Convention: Territorial sea, Continental shelf, Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), or International Area.
9. Marine area: ocean, sea, bay, etc.
10. Typology: Key words describing succinctly the deposit according to proposed standards.

    1. Zone type: Present geographic situation relative to the shoreline (See following pages).
    2. Morpho. 1 and Morpho. 2: First and second descriptors of the morphology of the sedimentary unit containing the ore, if the sedimentary unit is fossilised a prefix "paleo" is added. A tentative list of descriptors is used as a guide-line (See following pages).
    3. Petrography: Petrography of the rocks surrounding the ore.
    4. Mineralogy: Minerals of the ore.
11. Coordinates: Geographic latitudes and longitudes in decimal degrees of the parallels and meridians delimiting the ore deposit. The negative sign corresponds to Southern latitudes and Eastern longitudes. The cardinal directions (N, S, E, W) are automatically computed depending on the sign of the entered data.

    1. Latitude 1: northern-most parallel
    2. Latitude 2: southern-most parallel
    3. Longitude 1: eastern-most meridian
    4. Longitude 2: western-most meridian
    5. Z: The elevation Z, given in metres, is the average (positive) altitude or average (negative) depth.
12. Up dated: Date of up-dating: day/month/year
13. Mining rights: (Status of mining rights): Free, Under control, Unknown.
14. Stage: (Status of the works): exploration, mining, processing. Several stages can coexist.
15. Company: Company holding or mining the deposit.
16. Resources: Table showing estimation of resources or reserves, expressed in tonnage and grade of (1) ore, (2) Heavy minerals), (3) Commodities.

    1. Ore grade of one or several substances contained in the ore
    2. Tonnage of the ore
    3. Heavy Minerals grade: grade of one or several substances contained in the heavy minerals
    4. Heavy Minerals tonnage: tonnage of heavy minerals
    5. Commodity grade: grade of one or several substances contained in the concentrates or final products (commodities)
    6. Commodity tonnage: tonnage of concentrates or final products (commodities)
17. Description: Literal description of the occurrence or deposit. Normally subdivided into 5 items:

    1. Geographic situation
    2. Climate: climatic zone, rain, dominant winds, air temperatures.
    3. Hydrography: sea states, water temperatures, waves and swell, storms, tides, currents.
    4. Works performed: bathymetric and geophysical surveys, sampling, mining processing.
    5. Characteristics of the deposit: regional geology, nature of embedding formations, tectonic structures, shapes and dimensions of the ore bodies, minerals of the ore and the gangue, grades, tonnage, etc
18. References: Bibliographic references