Sunday, January 11, 2015

Global overview of potash released by USGS

The USGS has released it's long-awaited global review of potash resources.   The report, "Potash—A global overview of evaporite-related potash resources, including spatial databases of deposits, occurrences, and permissive tracts." 

The senior authors, Greta Orris and Mark Cocker, work out of the USGS Minerals Office in Tucson and have provided progress reports on the study in recent years to local professional meetings.


Arizona's Holbrook basin has only widely recognized as a world-class resource following the 2008 AZGS report describing the size and nature of the resource.    The breakup of the Uralkali potash marketing cartel two years disrupted potash development efforts worldwide, including proposals fot two underground mines in Arizona, capable of producing 1 -2 million tonnes per plant per year.   The cartel has since reformed, but the markets are settled. ruffled further by the great recession.

Citation:
Orris, G.J., Cocker, M.D., Dunlap, P., Wynn, Jeff, Spanski, G.T., Briggs, D.A., and Gass, L., with contributions from Bliss, J.D., Bolm, K.S., Yang, C., Lipin, B.R., Ludington, S., Miller, R.J., and Slowakiewicz, M., 2014, Potash—A global overview of evaporite-related potash resources, including spatial databases of deposits, occurrences, and permissive tracts: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2010–5090–S, 76 p., and spatial data, http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/sir20105090S.


[taken in part from the USGS announcement]

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