How phosphate rock is mined
Phosphate rock is sometimes made of fossil bone beds, and raw ore holds as little as 4% phosphorus pentoxide.
- stations
- 3
- things downstream
- 4
The short version
Phosphate rock is a sedimentary rock rich in apatite, laid down on ancient sea floors. Miners strip off the surface and dig the ore. A plant crushes and washes it into a slurry, floats the phosphate away from waste with froth, and may heat it. The enriched rock is mostly turned into fertilizer.
-
Dig the phosphorite
Phosphorite forms dark brown to black beds, from centimeters to several meters thick, often with limestone and mudstone. Most mines remove the soil above and dig the bed in open cuts.
-
Crush and wash to slurry
The mined ore is crushed and washed with water, which makes a slurry and carries off the finest clay.
-
Float and calcine
Froth flotation concentrates the phosphate into marketable rock phosphate, and some plants calcine it as well. Grade matters, since raw ore varies widely in how much phosphate it holds.
Worth repeating
- Bone beds, made of small fragments of fossil skeletons, are one kind of phosphate deposit.
- Commercially mined phosphorites occur in France, Belgium, Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Algeria.
Where it comes from
- China77 megatonnes
- United States29.4 megatonnes
- Morocco26.8 megatonnes
Phosphate rock mined in 2012, out of 195 megatonnes worldwide.
Where it goes next
Phosphate rock feeds 2 lines directly and reaches 4 things in total.
Keep walking
Sources
Cite this page: "How phosphate rock is mined." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/phosphate-rock