ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE ARBYNYA ORE SHOW OF SUPERGENE PHOSPHORITES IN THE CIRCUMPOLAR URALS

Abstract

An ore show of phosphate raw material has been found for the first time on the east slope of the Urals, in the basin of the Man'ya River in the Circumpolar Urals. The residual-infiltrational or chemogenic-mechanogenic phosphorites are associated with the weathered mantle on a phosphate-containing elastic series of volcanomietic limestone breccias of Early Devonian age. It is most likely that the phosphates of the Arbyn'ya ore show are residual-infiltrational deposits formed in karst depressions that developed in an area of a carbonate-volcanogenic elastic series containing intercalations and lenses of limestone. The primary phosphates have not been found, but they are probably present in the producing parent rock, as is indicated by fragments and crusts of dark gray, possibly primary phosphorite with a P2O5 content of 28.46 percent (Sample 770°/2). And although the reserves of ore shows of such type are not large, their favorable potentials are determined by the extensive development of potentially phosphorite-bearing Devonian rocks over the vast area of the Circumpolar Urals.