The Sunnfjord area in Norway contains a number of large rutile bearing eclogite deposits. Mineral composition can to some extent be compared to what is found in rutile bearing beach sands. The geological history of the deposits is complicated. Work has been underway for a long time to commercialise those deposits. The Engebfjell eclogite forms a 2.5 km long E-W-trending lens with a distinctly massive character compared to the surrounding rocks. The TiO2 content varies between three and seven per cent. By retrogradation about 95 per cent of the TiO2-content occurs as rutile and about five per cent as ilmenite. Liberation of rutile is a critical parameter. Processing may include grinding in a high pressure roller mill and ball milling. Electrical grinding offers interesting prospects, but the technology has not yet been commercialised to treat high tonnages. A number of MLA have been carried out to characterise the variations in crude ore and concentrates. The separation process has to involve a number of steps, as the gangue minerals have to be removed more or less one by one. To obtain a sharp separation the ore has to be classified into a number of size fractions. The most important environmental constraint is the tailings disposal. As the nearby fjord is about 300 metre deep, deep sea waste disposal has been planned._x000D_
CITATION:Sandvik, K, Norkyn, PandMalvik, T, 2010. Rutile beach sand from hard rock, in Proceedings XXV International Mineral Processing Congress (IMPC) 2010, pp 1207-1216 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)._x000D_