Appraisal of prospects for buried commercial placers of Ti-Zr placer provinces in Australia and Russia on the basis of reconstruction of the system: "bedrock - intermediate collector - Ti-Zr sands"

Reappraisal of overlapped areas of Ti-Zr provinces of Australia and Russia for cost-effective Ti-Zr placers was made by joint research of IMGRE and Macquery University on the basis of boundary parameters and criteria of prediction, search for, and appraisal of Ti-Zr. The sites selected for comparative research were recent and ancient placers of West Australia Province, Eucla Basin Province, and paleo Murray Basin, as well as Russian Cretaceous and Neogene Ti-Zr placers of East European Province, Neogene placers of Northern Caucasus (Scythian) Province, Cretaceous and Paleogene placers of Western Siberia and Eastern Ural Provinces. Studies of the system "bedrock - weathering crust - intermediate collector - commercial placer" comprised: structural-geomorphologic and paleofacies reconstructions of the territory of provinces; analysis of material composition and distribution of useful components; combined studies into type morphology and isotopic and geochemical characteristics of zircon, ilmenite, rutile and other minerals in all the components of the system, revealing alteration trends during transit from bedrock source to sedimentary basin. As a result of conducted structural geomorphological and paleo facial reconstructions of provinces, a distinct relation was established between the ranked forms of modern relief and corresponding ranks of major elements of substratum geology affecting the formation and persistence of Ti-Zr placers. Forecast maps were constructed for economic Ti-Zr placers. The elaborated and tested complex of research is least time-consuming and least expensive for appraising the prospects for buried industrial placers of overlapped areas at an early stage of studying them.