The Lipovo (Lipovskoe) lateritic nickel deposits are located north-east of Yekaterinburg in the central Urals of the Russian Federation. Lipovo is a cluster of largely mined-out pits and dumps that exploited very low-grade (0.4-0.7% Ni) laterite and saprolite for hydrometallurgical nickel and cobalt. The ores have a very irregular distribution under a thin cover of flat-lying Pliocene to Quaternary clay and a dissected Oligocene freshwater sequence.
The ores formed on the pre-Oligocene palaeosurface through humid tropical weathering of alpine-type serpentinite bodies which were were tectonically emplaced into basement supracrustal rocks as a series of discontinuous slices, lenses and sheets. Ore occurs both in-situ (residual) and as transported accumulations in pockets and lenses. The in-situ ultramafic regolith consists of ocherous laterite which grades downwards into yellow saprolite and a greenish nontronitic saprolite carrying nickel and cobalt. The ultramafic rocks are probably associated with the Great Uralian Fault suture.
(Source: Peter Laznicka 2006)
