Nearly 60 different types of minerals are produced in Turkey, supplying a number of important end markets including ceramics, glass and refractories. Exploitation of industrial minerals has developed rapidly in the country, with boron, marble and dimension stone representing the second largest export market for domestic companies.
This rapid development of Turkey’s mineral resources has been aided by work undertaken by the Mineral Research and Exploration General Directorate of Turkey (MTA), and three of the group’s recent discoveries are discussed here.
Zeolites, central Anatolia
The Lower-Middle Miocene Aktepe Formation outcrops to the south of Ankara, comprising volcaniclastic lacustrine sediments. The formation is dominated by three zeolitic tuffaceous layers, including dominant chabasite - a tectosilicate mineral of the zeolite group.
Based on the data obtained from XRD and SEM studies, it has been determined that the authigenic zeolite minerals are: chabasite, erionite, clinoptilolite and minor smectite...