Magmatic rock body containing strategic metals found on Kola Peninsula

Scientists have discovered a dike in the Kovdorsky district - a magmatic rock body, which is a deep substance of the Earth's mantle frozen in the earth's crust, the press service of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia reports. Dike minerals contain high concentrations of rare strategic metals, which exceed similar concentrations in super-large rare-metal deposits. The study makes it possible to evaluate the concentration process of rare elements at the latest stages of alkaline magmas.
The study was carried out by scientists of the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, a unit of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia.
Alkaline magmas are a specific type of melt, rare but very important from an economic point of view. For example, the world's largest Kola alkaline-carbonatite province includes two giant alkaline foliated complexes - Khibiny and Lovozero, which are associated with super-large deposits of strategic metals - niobium, tantalum, zirconium, hafnium, rare earth metals, and phosphorus.
Strategic metals are valuable because they fundamentally change the properties of materials. For example, adding a small amount of the rare earth element scandium to aluminum alloys triples their strength and creates ductility. In addition, rare earth elements are used in various branches of technology: in radio electronics, instrumentation engineering, nuclear technology, mechanical engineering, chemical industry, and metallurgy.
These deposits occupy a leading place in the structure of the Russian mineral resource base. In addition to gigantic complexes on the Kola Peninsula, there are also smaller bodies, as well as thousands of small bodies - dikes (vertical geological bodies or, in other words, igneous veins) of alkaline rocks.

Vladimir Malakhov, Rough&Polished