Apatite Mining Development

Phosphorite was first mined in Snffolk, England, in 1847 and soon after in a few other places in Europe. Igneous apatite was first mined in Norway in 1851. Operations have long since ceased at most of these sites, however, and overall European prodnction is now very small compared to the rest of the world. 

In North America phosphate rock was first mined in Ontario in 1863 and in South Carolina in 1867. These sonrces were then snperseded by the discovery of the much larger deposits in Florida which have been exploited to an enormons extent from abont 1888 onwards. Production in Tennessee started in 1893 and in the western states (Idaho, Utah, Montana and Wyoming) about 1906. Today Florida production remains dominant, and with N. Carolina, accounts for about 86% of the US output, with the remainder coming from Idaho and Utah. 

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, limited amounts of phosphate rock have been exported from various parts of the Pacific, particularly from Nauru, Ocean Island and Christmas Island (1906) (output from the last of these is usually now included with that from Australia). Most of these sources are now almost exhausted, however, and their contribution to world output is very small (see below). 

Mining operations commenced in Algeria and Tunisia at the beginning of the twentieth century, but production from the huge Moroccan deposits did not start until 1921. The USSR commenced production in the Kola Peninsula about 1930, although some mining had started earlier in acquired territories of Bessarabia and Estonia. Today Kola ore accounts for about 90% of Russian output. The 

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Reagent scheme developed for beneficiation of apatite-ilmenite ore from the Sept lies mine... 

The build-up of phosphates in the oceans or on the ocean beds may, in a few centuries, make the ocean the most economic if not the sole convenient source of supply. As an alternative to the direct mining of sea bed apatite, however, it may become possible to develop species of edible marine plants which could obtain their phosphate directly from (shallow) ocean waters, thus ranoving the necessity for fertiliser manufacture as we know it today [74]. 

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