Petrographic and Geochemical Characteristics of Metacarbonate in Northcentral Nigeria; Potential Applications in Industries

The mineralogical characteristics of metacarbonate from the Obajana area were determined with combine petrographic and X-ray diffraction methods. These methods revealed that the marble samples contains major proportion of calcite with minor quartz, dolomite, graphite, pyrite, olivine and phlogopite as accessory minerals. Also, analytical data from inductive coupled mass plasma spectrometry (ICPMS) showed an average SiO2 of 2.39%, high CaO content of 54.89%, with low MgO content of 1.1% and iron oxide content of 0.33%. Trace element composition, indicated that the metacarbonate is rich in Ni, Rb, Sr and Ba compared to Co, Ga and Nb in the metacarbonate. These characteristics make the metacarbonate suitable for major industrial use especially the production of high grade precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC).