Progress, Problems and Research Orientation of Ion-adsorption Type Rare Earth Resources

Rare earth is one of the superior mineral resources in China. But great attention has been focused on the ion-adsorption type rare earth resources, especially the medium and heavy rare earth. Ion-adsorption type rare earth ore is important resources in China, and extremely rare in the world. Since ion-adsorption type rare earth ore was discovered in 1962, outstanding progress has been achieved in the study on metallogenic mechanism, enrichment regularity, recovery method and environment protection for ion-adsorption type rare earth ore. This paper reviewed the progress in recent years and the existing problem in six aspects: metallogenic theory, exploration technique, comprehensive utilization of resources and mineral administration of ion-adsorption type rare earth ore. The urgent practical problems on reasonable evaluation of resources, optimizing the exploitation scheme and strengthening rare earth management & development are analyzed in details. It believes that the current geological exploration standard of rare earth mineral has unsuitable to the current situation, need to be modified. For ion-adsorption type rare earth ore, current resource classification method regardless of a single rare earth mineral is unfavorable to make full use of resources, need to establish a new evaluation and management system of a single rare earth mineral. In the future, management work for rare earth mining right setting and total mining control indicators should be strengthened.