On the dry seabird islands off the South American and South African coasts, immense deposits of bird droppings, rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, had accumulated over centuries.
The DRC has the second highest infant-mortality rate and the second lowest nominal GDP per capita in the world, despite its immense deposits of mineral resources.
In 1993, prospectors working for his company, Diamond Fields Resources, found an immense nickel deposit at Voisey's Bay, Labrador.
The southern section has immense coal deposits.
Before becoming chairman, Mr. Desmarest oversaw Total's worldwide exploration and production, winning concessions in places like West Africa, where drilling has revealed immense oil deposits.
But the immense ore deposits so far discovered and soaring commodity prices on the back of rip-roaring Chinese demand have convinced the world's miners that the continent is the next big frontier.
Although Africans had extracted tin and iron from river and stream beds on the plateau long before the arrival of Europeans, not until 1904, when the British commenced large-scale operations, did the region's immense tin deposits begin to be fully exploited.
Three years ago, a drill bit struck immense oil deposits deep off the coast of Brazil.
Locals called the immense silica deposits the Eighth Wonder of the World.
Bigger companies benefit from economies of scale: BHP reckons that buying Rio Tinto and merging the two firms' operations, in particular those at Pilbara, an immense iron-ore deposit in Australia, could result in annual savings of $3.7 billion within seven years.
