UK university spearheads raw materials project
The University of Exeter, UK, is to lead a groundbreaking new collaborative research project to discover crucial new deposits of essential raw materials across Europe.
The research team, which includes geologists from the university’s Camborne School of Mines, will devise new, state-of-the-art techniques to expose previously unknown underground resources that are vital to the manufacturing of a number of high-tech products.
Less than 3% of the supply of critical raw materials – including rare earths, phosphate and niobium – is currently sourced directly from Europe. But experts believe a wealth of as yet unexplored deposits exists throughout the continent, which could be successfully mined.
The four-year project will use mineralogy, petrology and geophysics techniques to create advanced exploration models to determine where these valuable minerals can be found.
“The pioneering new research that will be developed as part of this exciting project will give us unrivalled access to new locations for some of Europe’s most critical raw material deposits,” explains Professor Frances Wall, who is leading the project.
“We believe that the project will pave the way for Europe to become a world leader in this specialist, but vital, area of mineral extraction, and crucially exploit them in an environmentally responsible way.”
The project team comprises 12 partners including the Natural History Museum, GeoAfrica, the British Geological Survey, Terratec Geophysical Services, Lancaster Exploration Ltd (a subsidiary of Mkango Resources Ltd), A. Speiser Environmental Consultants, and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the universities of Tübingen, St Andrews, G. d’Annunzio and Mendel in Brno.
As part of the project, which has been supported by a €5.4m Horizon 2020 grant, four industry partners will also utilise world-leading expertise to develop and expand their businesses, transferring their expertise from Africa to Europe.
Studies, combined with expert council workshops, will take place at seven natural laboratories.
“We believe that this is the largest research project on carbonatites and alkaline rocks ever undertaken,” adds Wall. “It is a tremendously exciting opportunity to garner lifetimes’ worth of expertise from the world’s experts, which we will do through a series of expert council workshops and fieldtrips.”
