Part 1: Pegmatite mining in the province of Zambesia in Mozambique

Prof Dr Axel Müller Natural History Museum, Norway and Violeta Bunzula, Freiberg

Mining in what is now Mozambique has been practised for over 1000 years and was primarily known for the trade in gold between Mozambicans, Arabs and Persians. Today, in addition to gold, the most important export commodities are natural gas, coal, iron ore, bauxite, kaolin, graphite, titanium, zirconium, tantalum, niobium and gemstones. The first pegmatite gemstones from the province of Zambézia in the north of the country were discovered by Portuguese immigrants at the end of the 19th century. The interest in gemstones in Europe resulted in small-scale but continuous mining in the province from 1926 to 1974. Since 1974, gemstone mining has largely been carried out sporadically by local miners or small companies from home and abroad. The current enormous increase in demand from Western countries for lithium for battery production has also reached Mozambique and triggered a boom in pegmatite mining in the province of Zambesia. Lithium is mainly enriched in the minerals spodumene and lepidolite, the most important lithium raw materials alongside the brines of the salt plains of South America. Spodumene and lepidolite are common minerals in the Zambesia pegmatites. A number of private companies as well as illegal or legal small-scale miners have joined the race to mine spodumene and lepidolite. Although mining for lithium minerals is already active, the lithium reserves and the nature of the lithium deposits in the province of Zambesia are largely unknown. There is also little experience of the exploration strategy and methodology for lithium deposits and their efficient extraction. Against this background, the Freiberg Geocompetence Centre and the project coordination of the EU-funded GREENPEG Horizon 2020 project have initiated a collaboration with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy of Mozambique. The presentation gives impressions of the field work carried out in 2023 and presents the first results of the geological and socio-economic assessment of the pegmatite-bound lithium deposits in the province of Zambesia.

Dr Wolfgang Reimer,
GKZ Freiberg

Location: TU Bergakademie Freiberg, large lecture theatre of the Abraham-Gottlob-Wernerbau,
Brennhausgasse 14 in Freiberg

Free admission

The Freiberg Colloquium is a series of lectures organised by the Saxon State Office for Environment, Agriculture and Geology, the Saxon State Archives/Mining Archives Freiberg, the Saxon Mining Authority, the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, the Helmholtz Institute for Resource Research, terra mineralia and the Geokompetenzzentrum Freiberg e.V. (Freiberg Geocompetence Centre).