Manganese production was also developed during the war in the Gold Coast of West Africa, in Costa Rica, in Panama, in Java, and elsewhere; but with the possible exception of Java and Chile, none of these sources are likely to be factors in the world situation. The war-developed manganese production of Italy, France, Sweden, and United Kingdom is also unlikely to continue on any important scale.
Like iron ores, manganese ores consist principally of the oxides of manganese (pyrolusite, psilomelane, manganite, wad, and others), and rarely the carbonate of manganese (rhodochrosite). They are similar in their geologic occurrence to many of the iron ores and are often mixed with iron ores as manganiferous iron ores and ferruginous manganese ores.
The higher grade manganese ores are of two general types. Those of the Caucasus district in Russia are sedimentary beds, oölitic in texture, which were originally deposited as rather pure manganese oxides, and which have undergone little secondary concentration. They are mined in many places in much the same manner as coal. Those of India and Brazil are chiefly surface concentrations of the manganese oxides, formed by the weathering of underlying rocks which contain manganese carbonates and silicates. The origin of the primary manganese minerals in the Indian and in some of the Brazilian deposits is obscure. In others of the Brazilian ores, the manganese was deposited in sedimentary layers interbedded with siliceous "iron formations," and the whole series has subsequently been altered and recrystallized.
The manganese ores of Philipsburg, Montana, the principal large high-grade deposits mined in the United States, were derived by surface weathering from manganese carbonates which form replacements in limestone near the contact with a great batholith of granodiorite. The primary manganese minerals probably owe their origin to hot magmatic solutions, as suggested by the close association of the ores with the igneous rock, the presence of minerals containing chlorine, fluorine, and boron, and the development in the limestone of dense silicates and mineral associations characteristic of hot-water alteration. The manganese ores are mined principally in the oxidized zone. Rich silver ores are found below the water table, but mainly in veins independent of the manganese deposits.