Quantifying the Recoverable Resources of Companion Metals: A Preliminary Study of Australian Mineral Resources

摘要: The long-term availability of mineral resources is crucial in underpinning human society, technology, and economic activity, managing anthropogenic environmental impacts. This increasingly true for metals that do not generally form the primary product mines (“host” metals), such as copper or iron, but are recovered by-products (or sometimes co-products during processing ores). For these “companion” metals, it therefore useful to develop methodologies estimate recoverable resource, i.e., amount could, if desired, be extracted put into use over next several decades. We describe here a methodological approach estimating companion metal ores, using preliminary data some particular host/companion pairs Australia examples.