page_title: Phosphate
section_title: Geological occurrence
hierarchical_section_title: Phosphate / Production / Geological occurrence
caption_attribution_description: Phosphate Mine Panorama, Taken near Flaming Gorge NRA, UT.
context_page_description: In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid H
  ₃PO
  ₄.
  The phosphate or orthophosphate ion [PO
  ₄]³⁻
  is derived from phosphoric acid by the removal of three protons H⁺
  . Removal of one or two protons gives the dihydrogen phosphate ion [H
  ₂PO
  ₄]⁻
  and the hydrogen phosphate ion [HPO
  ₄]²⁻
  ion, respectively. These names are also used for salts of those anions, such as ammonium dihydrogen phosphate and trisodium phosphate.
  In organic chemistry, phosphate or orthophosphate is an organophosphate, an ester of orthophosphoric acid of the form PO
  ₄RR′R″ where one or more hydrogen atoms are replaced by organic groups. An example is trimethyl phosphate,
  ₃PO
  ₄. The term also refers to the trivalent functional group OP
  ₃ in such esters.
  Orthophosphates are especially important among the various phosphates because of their key roles in biochemistry, biogeochemistry, and ecology, and their economic importance for agriculture and industry. The addition and removal of phosphate groups are key steps in cell metabolism.
  Orthophosphates can condense to form pyrophosphates.
context_section_description: Phosphates are the naturally occurring form of the element phosphorus, found in many phosphate minerals. In mineralogy and geology, phosphate refers to a rock or ore containing phosphate ions. Inorganic phosphates are mined to obtain phosphorus for use in agriculture and industry.
  The largest global producer and exporter of phosphates is Morocco. Within North America, the largest deposits lie in the Bone Valley region of central Florida, the Soda Springs region of southeastern Idaho, and the coast of North Carolina. Smaller deposits are located in Montana, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. The small island nation of Nauru and its neighbor Banaba Island, which used to have massive phosphate deposits of the best quality, have been mined excessively. Rock phosphate can also be found in Egypt, Israel, Western Sahara, Navassa Island, Tunisia, Togo, and Jordan, countries that have large phosphate-mining industries.
  Phosphorite mines are primarily found in:
  North America:  United States, especially Florida, with lesser deposits in North Carolina, Idaho, and Tennessee
  Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Western Sahara, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Tunisia.
  Middle East: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Iraq, at the town of Akashat, near the Jordanian border.
  Central Asia: Kazakhstan
  Oceania: Australia, Makatea, Nauru, and Banaba Island
  In 2007, at the current rate of consumption, the supply of phosphorus was estimated to run out in 345 years. However, some scientists thought that a "peak phosphorus" will occur in 30 years and Dana Cordell from Institute for Sustainable Futures said  that at "current rates, reserves will be depleted in the next 50 to 100 years".  Reserves refer to the amount assumed recoverable at current market prices, and, in 2012, the USGS estimated 71 billion tons of world reserves, while 0.19 billion tons were mined globally in 2011.  Phosphorus comprises 0.1% by mass of the average rock (while, for perspective, its typical concentration in vegetation is 0.03% to 0.2%), and consequently there are quadrillions of tons of phosphorus in Earth's 3 * 10¹⁹ ton crust, albeit at predominantly lower concentration than the deposits counted as reserves from being inventoried and cheaper to extract; if it is assumed that the phosphate minerals in phosphate rock are hydroxyapatite and fluoroapatite, phosphate minerals contain roughly 18.5% phosphorus by weight and if phosphate rock contains around 20% of these minerals, the average phosphate rock has roughly 3.7% phosphorus by weight.
  Some phosphate rock deposits, such as Mulberry in Florida, are notable for their inclusion of significant quantities of radioactive uranium isotopes. This syndrome is noteworthy because radioactivity can be released into surface waters in the process of application of the resultant phosphate fertilizer (e.g. in many tobacco farming operations in the southeast US).
  In December 2012, Cominco Resources announced an updated JORC compliant resource of their Hinda project in Congo-Brazzaville of 531 Mt, making it the largest measured and indicated phosphate deposit in the world.
caption: Phosphate mine near Flaming Gorge, Utah, 2008
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