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Tantalum

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Tantalum

The Northern Territory contains a variety of small- to medium-sized tantalum deposits that have produced over 93 t of Ta2O5 in the last 20 years. Current resources for the NT are estimated at 851 t of Ta2O5. Deposits in the Pine Creek Orogen account for 99% of past Ta production and 99% of identified resources.

Tantalum mineralisation is present in a number of deposit styles including: pegmatites; polymetallic veins; and eluvial and alluvial placers. The first style is dominant and pegmatites can be found as clusters and swarms within the Litchfield Pegmatite Belt (includes the Sn-Ta-rich Bynoe Pegmatite Field) in the western Pine Creek Orogen. Individual pegmatites vary in size from a few metres wide and tens of metres long to larger bodies tens of metres wide by hundreds of metres long. Weathering and erosion of the pegmatites also produces spatially associated eluvial and alluvial placer deposits.

For further details on the geological setting, ore characteristics, resources and genesis of tantalum deposits in the NT, see Tin-tantalum pegmatites of the Northern Territory project. The following notes are derived from the abstract of this publication.