深海稀土资源勘查开发研究进展

Advances on study of exploration and development of deep-sea rare earth resources

深海稀土是近10年来发现的一种富集中-重稀土元素的新型矿产资源,潜力巨大,可能成为最先开发的深海矿产之一。日本等国以太平洋为重点,开展了深海稀土资源勘查研究及开发利用探索。我国率先在印度洋、太平洋等国际海域发现了大面积富稀土沉积区,并初步划分了四个深海稀土成矿带。目前深海稀土资源勘查主要采用的是沉积物重力(或重力活塞)岩心取样与浅地层调查相结合的技术方法,但是获取的岩心长度大多未穿透富集层底部边界,浅地层剖面难以精确识别富集层位,影响了深海稀土资源的勘查与评价。今后需要加强深海稀土资源勘查技术和设备的研发,形成集沉积物长岩心取样+高精度浅地层探测+沉积物元素海底原位测量于一体的勘查技术体系,深入研究不同空间尺度的稀土元素分布规律,为指导快速、准确寻找深海稀土"高品位、分布连续、少杂质"的优质富集区和开展稀土资源评价提供技术支撑,同时需加大深海稀土开发利用技术的研发力度。

Discovered in the past decade,rare earth elements and yttrium(REY)in the deep-sea sediments became a new type of marine mineral resource that enriched in the middle and heavy REY.Focusing on the Pacific Ocean,Japan and other counties have conducted deep-sea REY resource survey and research,as well as the development and utilization of the resource.China has successively found large areas of REY-rich sediments in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean,and preliminarily divided four REY metallogenic belts in the Open Ocean.At present,the deep-sea REY resource detection methods are mainly gravity/piston gravity coring combined with the sub-bottom profiling.However,most of the acquired cores cannot reach the bottom boundary of the REY-rich layers.It is also difficult to precisely determine the REY-rich layer by the sub-bottom profiling,which seriously compromised the exploration and assessment of deep-sea REY resource.In the future,it is necessary to strengthen the research and development of the deep-sea REY resource exploration technology and equipment,establishing the integrated exploration technology system of long-length coring,high precision sub-bottom profiling and in situ elemental analysis on sediment samples.Meanwhile,we should conduct more research on the governing rules of the REY spatial distributions,and enhance the exploitation and utilization technology for the deep-sea REY resource,in order to provide support for rapid and accurate search of“high grade,continuous distribution,less impurities”deep-sea REY-rich areas,and for the REY resource assessment.