Geologic Features
The zirconium silicate, zircon, is a fairly common accessory constituent of granitic rocks and pegmatite veins. From these rocks it is separated by weathering, disintegration, and stream transportation, and, having a high specific gravity, it becomes concentrated in placers. The deposits of southern India, of the coast of Brazil, and of Pablo Beach, Florida, all contain zircon along with ilmenite, garnet, rutile, monazite, and other insoluble, heavy minerals, in the sands of the ocean beaches. Smaller deposits of zircon-bearing sands exist in rivers and beaches in other parts of the United States and in other countries, but none of these deposits has thus far proved to be of commercial importance.
The largest and most important zirconium deposits are on a mountainous plateau in eastern Brazil and are of a unique type, entirely different from those just described. They contain the natural zirconium oxide, baddeleyite or brazilite, mixed with the silicate, the ore as produced carrying about 80 per cent zirconia (ZrO2). The ores consist both of alluvial pebbles and of extensive deposits in place. The latter are associated with phonolite (igneous) rocks, and seem to owe their origin to the agency of hot mineralizing solutions from the igneous rocks.
TITANIUM ORES
Economic Features
Titanium is sometimes used in steel manufacture to take out occluded gases and thus to increase the strength and wearing qualities. Its effect is to cure certain evils in the hardening of the molten steel, and it is not ordinarily added in amounts sufficient to form a definite steel alloy. Aluminum is frequently used in place of titanium. Titanium is added in the form of ferrotitanium, containing either about 15 per cent titanium and 6 to 8 per cent carbon, or about 25 per cent titanium and no carbon. Titanium compounds are also used in pigments, as electrodes for arc-lights, and by the army and navy for making smoke-clouds.
The United States has domestic supplies of titanium sufficient for all requirements. Production has come chiefly from Virginia. Additional quantities have been imported from Canada and Norway. The recently developed deposits of Pablo Beach, Florida, may produce important amounts of titanium minerals along with the output of zircon and monazite.