Gol Gohar
One of the pits at Gol Gohar
Location
Gol Gohar is located in Iran
Gol Gohar
Gol Gohar
Location of Gol Gohar within Iran
LocationNear Sirjan
ProvinceKerman
CountryIran
Coordinates29°05′34″N 55°19′35″E / 29.09272°N 55.32643°E / 29.09272; 55.32643[1]
Production
ProductsIron ore
Production11 million tons[2]
Financial yearc. 2006
TypeOpen-pit[2]
History
Opened1994 (1994)

Gol Gohar, or Gol-e Gohar (Persian:گل گهر), is the largest iron ore mine in Iran.[3] It has a total iron ore reserve of 1.135 billion tons,[4]:709 and produces about 11 million tons of iron annually as of 2006.[2] It is located about 55 km southwest of the city of Sirjan and is roughly equidistant from the cities of Kerman, Shiraz, and Bandar Abbas.[4]:709

The Gol Gohar deposits consist of 6 different deposit areas, or "anomalies", in a space of about 10 km by 4 km area.[4]:709 Areas 1 and 2 have been fully mapped, and area 3 has been partly mapped as of 2003.[5]:105–6 Mining has been done at area 1 since 1994; area 3 has the most extensive iron ore deposits; the other areas are relatively small and as of 2003 there were no plans to explore them further.[5]:105–6

History

Iron ore has been mined at Gol Gohar for an estimated 900 years; a large underground mine and smaller open-pit mine in the center of the area used to exist as traces of historical mining activity, but activity since the 20th century has mostly erased these traces.[5]:105 An estimated 350,000 tons of iron ore were extracted from the old mines at Gol Gohar over the course of their existence.[5]:105

In 1969, the Iran Barite Company began exploratory work at the Gol Gohar site; this was then delegated to the National Iranian Steel Industries Co. (or NISIC), a government corporation that now operates under the name National Iran Steel Company.[5]:105 NISIC then entered into a joint venture with the Swedish company Granges International Mining to continue exploring the deposits.[5]:105 Exploratory drillings began in 1975 on 6 different areas, and mining activity began in 1994.[5]:105

Geology

The Gol Gohar complex is located in a depression known locally as the Kheyrabad Salt Lake, which itself is located on the northeastern margin of the Sanandaj-Sirjan tectonic-metamorphic belt.[5]:106 The underlying basement rock consists of Paleozoic metamorphic rocks;[5]:106 mainly gneiss, mica schist, amphibiolites, quartz schist, marble, dolomite, and calcite.[4]:709 Above these are Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary rocks and Quaternary alluvial deposits.[5]:106

The ore body itself is estimated to be lenticular in shape, about 2600 m long from east to west and about 400 m wide from north to south.[5]:106 Several different proposals have been put forward for how it originated: Ljung (1976) suggested a metasedimentary origin, Muke and Golestaneh (1982-91) proposed a magmatic origin similar to the Kiruna mine in Sweden, Hallaji (1992) argued in favor of a metasomatic origin, and Khalili (1993) proposed a volcanic sedimentary origin.[5]:106

References

  1. "Geonames Search". Do a radial search using these coordinates here.
  2. 1 2 3 Oraee, K.; Goodarzi, A. (2006). "Feasibility study of Gol-Gohar iron ore open cast mine operation of Iran". In Cardu, M.; Ciccu, R.; Michelotti, E. (eds.). Mine Planning and Equipment Selection 2006: Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Symposium on Mine Planning and Equipment Selection, Torino, Italy, 20-22 September 2006. Torino: GEAM. ISBN 9788890134241. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  3. Assari, Amin (2019). "Defining hydrogeology of the Gohar-Zamin open pit mine, Iran: a case study in a hard-rock aquifer". Hydrogeology Journal. 27 (4): 1479–95. doi:10.1007/s10040-018-01919-4. S2CID 133767328. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Jahani, M.; Taji, Mohammad (August 2015). "Comparison of Empirical Fragmentation Models at the Gol-Gohar Iron Ore Mine". 11th International Symposium on Rock Fragmentation by Blasting: 707–13. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Bagherian, A.; Shahriar, K. (2003). "Slope Stability at Gol-E-Gohar Iron Mine" (PDF). 18"' International Mining Congress and Exhibition of Turkey: 105–12. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
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