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Yttrium and rare earth element contents in seamount cobalt crusts in the Indian Ocean

DRS at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography

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Title Yttrium and rare earth element contents in seamount cobalt crusts in the Indian Ocean
 
Creator Balaram, V.
Banakar, V.K.
Subramanyam, K.S.V.
Roy, P.
Satyanarayan, M.
RamMohan, M.
Sawant, S.S.
 
Subject cobalt
seamounts
rare earths
yttrium
oceanic crust
 
Description Cobalt-rich Fe-Mn crusts occur on almost all seamounts and plateaus of the world oceans. Fe-Mn crusts are formed through layer-by-layer accretion of colloidal precipitates from cold ambient seawater onto exposed seamount rock substrates. This study reports high concentrations of rare earth elements (REE) and yttrium ranging from 1,727 to 2,511 mu g/g in the crust samples collected from the Afanasy Niktin Seamount (ANS) in the Eastern Equatorial Indian Ocean. The concentrations of REE in the ANS Fe-Mn crusts are much higher than those of the mid-Pacific seamount and nodules (1,180-1,434 mu g/g). Ce-enrichment up to 0.17 percent has been recorded in the present study as against approx. 0.1 percent content in global seamount Fe-Mn crusts. This enrichment is attributed to oxidative removal of Ce from seawater to the marine Fe-Mn crust. The negative Ce-anomalies obtained for seawater samples from the ANS region coupled with strong positive Ce-anomalies in Fe-Mn crusts clearly indicate that the source of Ce in ANS Fe-Mn crusts is sea-water. This investigation warrants further detailed exploration studies in order to make an estimate of these highly useful elements in the cobalt enriched Fe-Mn crusts of Indian Ocean.
 
Date 2013-02-01T09:23:52Z
2013-02-01T09:23:52Z
2012
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Current Science, vol.103; 2012; 1334-1338
http://drs.nio.org/drs/handle/2264/4226
 
Language en
 
Rights Copyright [2012]. All efforts have been made to respect the copyright to the best of our knowledge. Inadvertent omissions, if brought to our notice, stand for correction and withdrawal of document from this repository.
 
Publisher Current Science Association