Visakhapatnam: The marine wing of Geological Survey of India (GSI), with its office here in Vizag, has found at lea-st 14 offshore blocks along the coast of three districts of north Andhra, containing rare earth minerals like Ilmenite, Rutile, Leuc-oxene, Zircon, Garnet, Sil-limanite and traces of Monazite.
Until now, these rare earth minerals were seen on the beach in Srikakulam and for the first time GSI found underwater offshore availability of these minerals.
GSI carried out surveys in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and Territorial Water (TW) of India along the coastal states of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, to assess the offshore mineral resources.
Along the Andhra coast these mineral blocks were found off the three districts. Territorial Water is the belt of coastal water that extends up to 12 nautical miles from the coast of a country and EEZ till 200km from the coast.
These minerals were found 30 metres deep in the sea. Around 14 blocks of 80 sq. km each have been found along the coast of Vizianagaram, Srikak-ulam and Visakhapatnam.
“With the present rate of beach sand mining and putting the sand available on the coasts to various uses, it is expected to become a scare resource. These underwater mineral resources are the future. GSI marine wing identified 14 blocks along Andhra Odisha Border (AOB) coast and shared the details with the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), which will look into commercial exploitation of these underwater mineral resources,” said a senior official of the GSI marine wing.
Minister of Mines and Steel Narendra Singh Tomar, in a reply to a question in Lok Sabha, in the second week of August, had said that the Geological Survey of India had carried out 3,95,590 line km of bathymetric, 4,16,992 sq. km of multi -beam bathymetric and 2,24,010 line km of magnetic surveys in the Indian EEZ to find the underwater mineral resources.
