Simandou
Encyclopedia
Simandou is a 110 km long range of hills located in the Nzérékoré Region
of southeastern Guinea
, in the country's mountainous, forested Guinée Forestière
region. At the southern end of the range the site of a large iron ore deposit is currently being developed.
This town is not to be confused with Siamandou further to the west.
. It is located east of Banankoro and to the west of Kerouane
. Simandou is near Diéké
.
of West Africa, one of the world's biologically richest and most endangered terrestrial ecosystems. The Upper Guinean forests
ecosystem of which the Simandou Range forms part extends across southern Guinea, Sierra Leone
, Liberia
and southern Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana
and western Togo
. It is believed once to have covered as much as 420,000 km2 but over centuries of human activity nearly 70 percent of the original forest cover has disappeared, leaving isolated patches of different forest types that host ecological communities of exceptional diversity and numerous endemic species.
The variety of habitats found in the Simandou Range include humid Guinean savanna
, Western Guinean lowland forest, Guinean montane and gallery forests, and the rare and endangered West African montane grassland
habitat. The Pic de Fon forest at the southern end of the range is a relatively intact area of approximately 25,600 ha. that contains many typical flora and fauna of the Upper Guinean forests
ecosystem, including endangered species such as the Nimba otter shrew
(Micropotamogale lamottei), the West African chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus), the Diana monkey
(Cercopithecus diana diana) and the Sierra Leone or White-eyed prinia
(Schistolais leontica), a bird of the West African highlands known from only three other sites in the world.
The area has so far been protected by relative isolation but its biodiversity
is now threatened by the encroachment of agriculture, illegal and unregulated bush meat hunting, logging
, uncontrolled bush fires, road development, potentially destructive mining operations and human population growth. Government agencies' lack of capacity to enforce environmental legislation increases the threat. Land tenure
conflicts and ecologically destructive subsistence farming practices (slash and burn
agriculture), exacerbated by poverty, also pose problems for the environment.
, phyllites
and quartzites
within Proterozoic
basement rocks.
The Pic de Fon and Ouéléba iron deposits are located approximately 4 km from one another at the southern end of the Simandou Range, approximately 550 km ESE of the capital Conakry
. Both deposits are approximately 7.5 km in length and up to 1 km wide. At both banded iron formations (metamorphosed to staurolite
-grade itabirites
) have been enriched to form haematite and haematite-goethite
mineralisations. The potential yield of the two deposits is estimated at 2.25 billion tonnes of high-grade iron ore.
In 2008 Rio Tinto Group
, the licensee of the Simadou concession, was ordered by the Guinean government to relinquish the northern half (Blocks 1 and 2, east and southeast of Kerouane) to BSG Resources, a company controlled by the Israeli diamond investor Beny Steinmetz
. In March 2010 Rio Tinto and its biggest shareholder, Aluminum Corporation of China Limited (Chinalco), signed a preliminary agreement to develop Rio Tinto's iron ore project.
Mining operations are expected to start before the end of 2015. Rio Tinto Limited plans to build a 650km railway to transport iron ore from the mine to the coast, near Matakong
, for export. Much of the Simandou iron ore is expected to be shipped to China for steel production.
Nzérékoré Region
The Nzérékoré Region is a region in the southern part of Guinea. Its capital and largest city is Nzérékoré. It is one of the eight regions of Guinea...
of southeastern Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
, in the country's mountainous, forested Guinée Forestière
Guinée Forestière
Guinée Forestière is a forested mountainous region in southeastern Guinea, extending into northeastern Sierra Leone. It is one of four natural regions into which Guinea is divided and covers 23% of the country...
region. At the southern end of the range the site of a large iron ore deposit is currently being developed.
Namesake
There is a town of the same name in nearby Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).This town is not to be confused with Siamandou further to the west.
Geography
Simandou is located in the Monts du TouraMonts du Toura
The Monts du Toura, also known as the Toura Mountains, are a range of mountains rising to 1300 metres in elevation, extending westward across Côte d’Ivoire from the Sassandra River to the border with Liberia and Guinea...
. It is located east of Banankoro and to the west of Kerouane
Kerouane, Guinea
- External links :*...
. Simandou is near Diéké
Diéké
Diéké, Djécké or Diecke is a town and sub-prefecture in the Yomou Prefecture in the Nzérékoré Region of south-eastern Guinea.- External links :*...
.
Ecology and Natural History
The Simandou Range is an important area of conservation for the Guinean forest ecosystemGuinean Forests of West Africa
The Guinean forests of West Africa is a biodiversity hotspot designated by Conservation International, which includes the belt of tropical moist broadleaf forests along the coast of West Africa, running from Sierra Leone and Guinea in the west to the Sanaga River of Cameroon in the east...
of West Africa, one of the world's biologically richest and most endangered terrestrial ecosystems. The Upper Guinean forests
Upper Guinean forests
The Upper Guinean forests is a tropical moist forest region of West Africa. The Upper Guinean forests extend from Guinea and Sierra Leone in the west through Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana to Togo in the east, and a few hundred kilometers inland from the Atlantic coast. A few enclaves of montane...
ecosystem of which the Simandou Range forms part extends across southern Guinea, Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
, Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
and southern Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
and western Togo
Togo
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic , is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately with a population of approximately...
. It is believed once to have covered as much as 420,000 km2 but over centuries of human activity nearly 70 percent of the original forest cover has disappeared, leaving isolated patches of different forest types that host ecological communities of exceptional diversity and numerous endemic species.
The variety of habitats found in the Simandou Range include humid Guinean savanna
Savanna
A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...
, Western Guinean lowland forest, Guinean montane and gallery forests, and the rare and endangered West African montane grassland
Montane grasslands and shrublands
Montane grasslands and shrublands is a biome defined by the World Wildlife Fund. The biome includes high altitude grasslands and shrublands around the world....
habitat. The Pic de Fon forest at the southern end of the range is a relatively intact area of approximately 25,600 ha. that contains many typical flora and fauna of the Upper Guinean forests
Upper Guinean forests
The Upper Guinean forests is a tropical moist forest region of West Africa. The Upper Guinean forests extend from Guinea and Sierra Leone in the west through Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana to Togo in the east, and a few hundred kilometers inland from the Atlantic coast. A few enclaves of montane...
ecosystem, including endangered species such as the Nimba otter shrew
Nimba Otter Shrew
The Nimba Otter Shrew is a dwarf otter shrew and belongs to the mammal family Tenrecidae. It is native to Mount Nimba in West Africa. Also known as Pygmy Otter Shrew, it shares the genus Micropotamogale with the Ruwenzori Otter Shrew.-Description:The Nimba Otter Shrew has a body length of 12-20 cm...
(Micropotamogale lamottei), the West African chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus), the Diana monkey
Diana Monkey
The Diana monkey is an Old World monkey found in West Africa, from Sierra Leone to Côte d'Ivoire.The Diana monkey ranges from 40 to 55 cm in length, excluding its tail, which is of a uniform 3–4 cm diameter and 50–75 cm long. Adults weigh between 4–7 kg...
(Cercopithecus diana diana) and the Sierra Leone or White-eyed prinia
White-eyed Prinia
The White-eyed Prinia , also known as the White-eyed Warbler, is a species of bird in the Cisticolidae family. It is found in Ivory Coast, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montanes. It is threatened by habitat loss.-References:* BirdLife...
(Schistolais leontica), a bird of the West African highlands known from only three other sites in the world.
The area has so far been protected by relative isolation but its biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
is now threatened by the encroachment of agriculture, illegal and unregulated bush meat hunting, logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
, uncontrolled bush fires, road development, potentially destructive mining operations and human population growth. Government agencies' lack of capacity to enforce environmental legislation increases the threat. Land tenure
Land tenure
Land tenure is the name given, particularly in common law systems, to the legal regime in which land is owned by an individual, who is said to "hold" the land . The sovereign monarch, known as The Crown, held land in its own right. All private owners are either its tenants or sub-tenants...
conflicts and ecologically destructive subsistence farming practices (slash and burn
Slash and burn
Slash-and-burn is an agricultural technique which involves cutting and burning of forests or woodlands to create fields. It is subsistence agriculture that typically uses little technology or other tools. It is typically part of shifting cultivation agriculture, and of transhumance livestock...
agriculture), exacerbated by poverty, also pose problems for the environment.
Geology
The Simandou Range consists of a sequence of deformed itabiritesItabirite
Itabirite, also known as banded-quartz hematite and hematite schist, is a laminated, metamorphosed oxide-facies iron formation in which the original chert or jasper bands have been recrystallized into megascopically distinguishable grains of quartz and the iron is present as thin layers of...
, phyllites
Phyllite
Phyllite is a type of foliated metamorphic rock primarily composed of quartz, sericite mica, and chlorite; the rock represents a gradation in the degree of metamorphism between slate and mica schist. Minute crystals of graphite, sericite, or chlorite impart a silky, sometimes golden sheen to the...
and quartzites
Quartzite
Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...
within Proterozoic
Proterozoic
The Proterozoic is a geological eon representing a period before the first abundant complex life on Earth. The name Proterozoic comes from the Greek "earlier life"...
basement rocks.
Mining and Transport
Simandou is planned to become the site of the largest integrated iron-ore mine and infrastructure project ever developed in Africa.The Pic de Fon and Ouéléba iron deposits are located approximately 4 km from one another at the southern end of the Simandou Range, approximately 550 km ESE of the capital Conakry
Conakry
Conakry is the capital and largest city of Guinea. Conakry is a port city on the Atlantic Ocean and serves as the economic, financial and cultural centre of Guinea with a 2009 population of 1,548,500...
. Both deposits are approximately 7.5 km in length and up to 1 km wide. At both banded iron formations (metamorphosed to staurolite
Staurolite
Staurolite is a red brown to black, mostly opaque, nesosilicate mineral with a white streak.-Properties:It crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, has a Mohs hardness of 7 to 7.5 and a rather complex chemical formula: 2Al94O204...
-grade itabirites
Itabirite
Itabirite, also known as banded-quartz hematite and hematite schist, is a laminated, metamorphosed oxide-facies iron formation in which the original chert or jasper bands have been recrystallized into megascopically distinguishable grains of quartz and the iron is present as thin layers of...
) have been enriched to form haematite and haematite-goethite
Goethite
Goethite , named after the German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, is an iron bearing oxide mineral found in soil and other low-temperature environments. Goethite has been well known since prehistoric times for its use as a pigment. Evidence has been found of its use in paint pigment samples...
mineralisations. The potential yield of the two deposits is estimated at 2.25 billion tonnes of high-grade iron ore.
In 2008 Rio Tinto Group
Rio Tinto Group
The Rio Tinto Group is a diversified, British-Australian, multinational mining and resources group with headquarters in London and Melbourne. The company was founded in 1873, when a multinational consortium of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tinto river, in Huelva, Spain from the...
, the licensee of the Simadou concession, was ordered by the Guinean government to relinquish the northern half (Blocks 1 and 2, east and southeast of Kerouane) to BSG Resources, a company controlled by the Israeli diamond investor Beny Steinmetz
Beny Steinmetz
Beny Steinmetz is an Israeli businessman. His portfolio is in diamond-mining and real estate.-Biography:He inherited the Geneva-based Steinmetz Diamond Group from his father. He is the CEO of the Beny Steinmetz Resource Group, also based in Geneva....
. In March 2010 Rio Tinto and its biggest shareholder, Aluminum Corporation of China Limited (Chinalco), signed a preliminary agreement to develop Rio Tinto's iron ore project.
Mining operations are expected to start before the end of 2015. Rio Tinto Limited plans to build a 650km railway to transport iron ore from the mine to the coast, near Matakong
Matakong
Matakong is an island just off the coast of Guinea between the capital Conakry and the Sierra Leone border.- Transport :Matakong is the proposed port terminus of the heavy duty standard gauge Transguinean Railways linking large iron and bauxite deposits to the coast...
, for export. Much of the Simandou iron ore is expected to be shipped to China for steel production.
External links
- Rio Tinto Simandou website home page, accessed 25 December 2010
- "Rio's chairman can't tell whole story of Guinea chat", by Matthew Stevens, The Australian, 12 September 2008, accessed 25 December 2010
- Rio Tinto Iron Ore website Simandou page, accessed 25 December 2010
- "Mining Groups Target West Africa", by William Macnamara, FT.com, 18.5.2010, site accessed 25 December 2010, page now behind payscreen
- MSN Map Simandou, Guinea, accessed 12 December 2010
- "Guinean montane forests", World Wildlife Fund, accessed 12 December 2010.