GRAIN MORPHOLOGY OF PLACER ILMENITES IN ANDHRA PRADESH COAST (Textural and Ore microscopic studies)

India is provided and blessed especially as by inheritance or nature with long coastline of over six thousand kilometers actively protective and covering a wide area both east and west coasts. This endowed coastline is marked by distinctly varied coastal environments like beaches, dunal belts, swampy environments, lagoons, deltas, estuaries etc. The continuous in flux of naturally processed material that settle as sediments brought by a number of streams and rivers draining the hinterland are the main source for the rich and valuable heavy solid homogeneous inorganic substances having a definite chemical composition as mineral deposits. The beach and sand ridges as dune sands of east and west coasts of India contain many economically important alluvial deposits as placer sand deposits. These minerals include ilmenite, rutile, garnet, zircon, monazite and sillimanite. A number of auspicious factors like source rock geology, coastal geomorphology effective drainage network and favorable climatic conditions influenced the formation of rich placer deposits in beach and dunal environments.