Ionic rare earth element (REE) deposits are an important strategic resource in China, mainly located in Jiangxi, Guangdong and other provinces in the south of China. Their exploitation by heap leaching has generated important environmental damages, such as water contamination, erosion and landslides. The mining processes has been shown to change the REEs fractionation and distribution in bare tailings. By separated the different size fractions and using the SEM-EDX to observe the different particles, we found that there are two main type of REE-bearing phase in representative particles and fine fractions (2-20 µm, 20-50 µm, 50-200 µm), 1) Ce-bearing phase; 2) mischmetal-bearing phase with P coexistence. Ce-bearing phase in particles could be as oxide or associated with iron/manganese oxide (hydroxide) and some mischmetal-bearing phase in tailings are RE phosphates. Considering we didn’t find a phase contain HREEs and LREEs at the same time, there might be exist “LRE-form” and “HRE-form” phosphates.