Magnetic and Geochemical Studies of Iron sand Deposits around Tambora Volcano in Sumbawa, Indonesia: A proxy for search high quality iron sand
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17794/rgn.2025.5.2Keywords:
iron sand, magnetic minerals, grain size, magnetic susceptibility, geochemistry, TamboraAbstract
Tambora Volcano is known as a volcano that had a catastrophic eruption in 1815, with an enormous amount of material released, including pyroclastic flows and fall deposits. From these volcanic products, erosion and transportation processes acted towards the coastline and formed iron sand, which contains economically valuable minerals such as magnetite. Iron sand is one of the important elements/components for the production of steel and titanium, but its use is still limited. In Indonesia, iron sand has only been mined and used as a mixture in the production of cement and building materials because of its low iron content (45-48%). Therefore, it is important to know the characteristics and content of iron sand to maximise the results of iron sand mining. The characteristics of iron sand deposits from Mount Tambora are still unclear and have never been studied. Therefore, we conducted a study to identify the geochemical characteristics and magnetic properties of iron sand around Tambora Volcano to determine the concentration of economic elements from different volcanic products. This study uses magnetic susceptibility measurements, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), and Inductively Coupled Plasma - Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) measurements. Sampling was carried out at three locations in the area, namely Nanga Miro, Baringin Jaya, and Hodo. The Nanga Miro and Baringin Jaya areas are the lava flow deposit zones of the 1815 eruption and lava flows from previous eruptions, while the Hodo area is just the pyroclastic flow zone of the 1815 eruption. The results showed that the distribution of sand grain sizes in Baringin Jaya and Nanga Miro that are from the lava flow deposit zones are dominantly medium sized (MS) and fine sized (FS). Meanwhile, in Hodo, which is from the pyroclastic flow deposit zone, it is dominantly coarse sized (CS) and medium sized (MS). Areas from the lava flow zones have high susceptibility values, high Fe concentrations, and magnetic mineral content of magnetite and haematite. In addition, the REE elements (Ce, Gd, and Pr) have a high concentration in iron sand from the lava flow area and have a good Pearson correlation value. The combination of grain size distribution and magnetic and geochemical properties has shown differences in the characteristics of iron sand in the Tambora Volcano area.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Putu Billy Suryanata, Adella Ulyandana Jayatri, Satria Bijaksana, Silvia Jannatul Fajar, Uivienin Harlianti
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