Resumen de Appraisal of Industrial Minerals in Turkey
Though there are many diverse minerals mined in Turkey, the country is a major player in the world production of boron ( Fig. 2 ), having 72.5% of the world's boron reserves, a total of 935.8m tonnes. Boron is the only commodity in Turkey that is controlled by a state-owned mining company, Eti Maden, which produced 47.2% of the world's boron in 2012 and had 46% of global market share.
Turkey has become one of the largest producers of natural soda ash and trona since 2009, with production reaching 1.8bn tonnes in 2012 ( Fig. 3 ). The country also has significant reserves of trona in Beypazari and the Kazan deposits in Ankara, central Turkey. The Beypazari trona deposit has 236m tonnes at 70-90% Na[subscript]2 CO[subscript]3 reserves, and recently discovered that the Kazan deposit has 607m tonnes ore at 31% trona.
Bentonite production peaked in 2007 with 1.7bn tonnes produced and was 1bn tonnes in 2012. The largest kaolinite deposit in Turkey is located in Duvertepe in Balikesir northwest Turkey, containing 63.7m tonnes at 13 to 33 % Al[subscript]2 O[subscript]3.
