Visakhapatnam: The sleepy and laidback coastal town of Bheemili is sitting on deposits of heavy minerals such as Ilmenite, Rutile, Monazite, and Garnet of the best grade, better than that available along the Odisha coast where large-scale mining of these minerals takes place. Studies conducted by geologists from the city over a period of five yea-rs concluded that these minerals — for which there is a great demand in foreign countries whe-re they are used in critical new technologies, from rechargeable batteries to wind turbines, mo-bile phones to aircraft components — are of hi-gh quality and contain fewer impurities, keeping them well within the limits of industrial specifications.
The Bheemili coast remains untapped and un-explored. “The study was an attempt to add new scientific knowledge of hea-vy minerals, its concentration and distribution in different size fractions in Bhimunipatnam-Kon-ada coastal sands. Based on industrial specifications, geochemical data of ilmenite and rutile in the present study area are of better grade than that found in Odisha’s coastal sands. The Bhee-mili area is economically important for heavy mineral extraction and processing,” Kilaparthi Bangaru Naidu of Andhra University’s Geology dep-artment who has studied the coastal sands of Bhe-emili, told this correspondent.
The samples collected from the Bheemili coast were studied at the geochemistry labs of the Geological Survey of In-dia (GSI) using the Ele-ctron Probe Micro Anal-ysis (EPMA) method. They were found to be 50 to 60 per cent superior to those mined in neighbouring Odisha. The samples were collected from the Bhee-munipatnam-Konada co-astal sands, in the 20 km stretch from the Gosthani River in the south to the Champavathi River in the north.
A total of 71 sediment samples were collected in microenvironments like foreshore, berm, backshore and dune along twenty traverses, with an interval of 1 km from south to north. At present, Indian Rare Earths Ltd (IREL), a Go-vernment of India undertaking, is mining and pr-ocessing beach sand for heavy minerals from dep-osits in Chavara in Kera-la, Gopalpur in Odisha and Manavalakurichi in Tamil Nadu. Private companies are involved in be-ach sand mining for these heavy minerals along the Srikakulam coast.
