Abstract
Granitic rocks in the Nubian Shield rocks of Egypt and elsewhere in the world are major resources of important economic minerals that bear rare metals and/or rare-earth elements. Peraluminous granites and related pegmatites (quartz-rich and excess Al2O3) are potential sources of rare metals. They are developed by re-melting of pre-existing felsic intrusions or metasedimentary rocks. On the other hand, granites and pegmatites that host rare-earth elements are mostly peralkaline (quartz-poor and excess alkalis) that are crystallized within their host igneous rocks during magmatic events. Rare earths are not naturally found as native elements but reside as components within some specific minerals such as bastnaesite, allanite, monazite and xenotime. Tungsten, tantalum-niobium (Ta-Nb) and rare-earth elements (REE) are classified as strategic metals. Strategic metals can be generally defined as metals vital to modern technology and industry, but that have sources susceptible to disruption (UK Science and Technology Committee 2011; Blevin 2012). Generally, the amount and value of production vary markedly in the following order Cr Mn Ti ≫ REE ≫ Ge ≫ Tl. In general, the most common rare metal-bearing minerals in nature are beryl (Be), pollucite (Cs), petallite-spodumene-lepidolite (Li), columbite-tantalite-pyrochlore (Nb-Ta), cassiterite (Sn) and wolframite (W). Sn-W-Ta-Mo-REE mineralizations are associated with a variety of granitic rocks in the Nubian Shield of Egypt. Hussein (1990) groped them as deposits associated with granitic rocks generally of GII and GIII types. Igla is the most prominent example of the tin-tungsten ores near Mersa Alam. Abdalla and El Afandy (2003) believed that the majority of such deposits are hosted by pegmatites that are related to A-type granites, i.e. alkaline magmatism in a within-plate environment in most. This variety of deposits also includes some significant radioactive mineralizations (e.g. Ibrahim et al. 2001; Abdel Warith et al. 2004; and many others).
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Surour, A.A. (2021). Sn-W-Ta-Mo-U-REE Mineralizations Associated with Alkali Granite Magmatism in Egyptian Nubian Shield. In: Hamimi, Z., Arai, S., Fowler, AR., El-Bialy, M.Z. (eds) The Geology of the Egyptian Nubian Shield. Regional Geology Reviews. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49771-2_21
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