News

The conference of the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG), held in London August 26-29 2023 with about 900 participants, addressed the challenges that global exploration and ore deposit research are facing due to accelerated demand and consumption of critical and strategic metals required for the energy transition. The spotlight is on Europe in terms of refined definition of metallogenic domains, development of novel exploration strategies, and re-evaluation of mining potentials. Four GREENPEG partners provided specific solutions how to face the challenges by presenting GREENPEG results including the first public demonstration of the GREENPEG toolset for pegmatite exploration. The feedback and interest in the toolset, which will be published in 2024, was overwhelming underlining the urgent need of improved exploration technologies.

Feldspar-Quartz NYF-pegmatite at GREENPEG test site Håkonhals in Northern Norway seen through the eyes of the artist. Image extracted from the Spectral Index video (copy right Dr Stephen Cornford)
Feldspar-Quartz NYF-pegmatite at GREENPEG test site Håkonhals in Northern Norway seen through the eyes of the artist.

Some partners of the GREENPEG Project Consortium gave support to the media artist Dr Stephen Cornford https://stephencornford.net/ and spent quite some time with him in the field in Tysfjord, Wolfsberg and in Leinster (project demonstration sites) assisting him with questions and guiding him in the field sites. Having visited all three locations, Stephen documented a wide range of the exploration tools and devices used in GREENPEG, recorded some typical scenes of people doing geophysical work and took videos from stills and made sound records such as the internal clicking and beeping of some of the devices. More information will be given in our September issue of GREENPEG Newsletter. See also the video which is now online available for streaming here:

https://avantwhatever.xyz/w/tsSQUPENFwnYfwJTche3jh

 

 

 

Artist Biography

Stephen Cornford is a media artist who works with consumer electronics, critiquing the ideologies they embody and the constitutive role they have come to play in our lives. His current research is concerned with the toxicity of digital media, the complex metallurgy of ubiquitous technologies and relationships between planetary and photographic space.

Much of his recent work has been made in collaboration with scienctific researchers. He has worked alongside commercial geophysicists prospecting for technology metals in Europe and volcanologists studying magma crystallisation with X-rays. His practice often employs laboratory processes or scientific imaging, using geological furnaces to transform electronic waste or optoelectronics facilities to damage cameras.

Sourcing the European energy transition from domestic resources – vision or wishful thinking?

Sourcing the European energy transition from domestic resources – vision or wishful thinking? This one-day conference questions Europe's raw materials supply security in the context of its economically viable raw material potential and of current geopolitics. It examines the existing and future framework conditions for mining projects and their downstream value chain (regulation, financing, permitting). The question arises, which course do we follow?

The conference also focuses on the work of the European Geological Surveys for the territorial mapping of critical raw materials and highlights the potential for cooperation with Africa. On April 26th, a site visit is offered by United Lithium Corp. to Bergby Lake Lithium exploration project.

Sweden currently holds the EU Council Presidency for the first half of 2023. Sweden is one of the most important mining countries in Europe with great raw material potential for managing the energy and mobility transition and securing the raw material supply for future technologies.

The conference is hosted by the EU HORIZON 2020 project GREENPEG, in cooperation with the Swedish Mining Association SVEMIN and the European Technology Platform on Sustainable Mineral Resources (ETP SMR) and will take place in picturesque city of Uppsala, 20 minutes by train from Stockholm Airport. Participation is free of charge.

Registration now open – Program and Logistics linked_in Follow via Linkedin

 

Sourcing the European energy transition from domestic resources – vision or wishful thinking?

Including the world-class spodumene pegmatites at Manono-Kitotolo presented by Prof Anouk Borst, KU Leuven. She will discuss the geology, as well as some socio-economic and political aspects of exploration and mining in DRC, in the context of widespread artisanal mining and conflict. Get familiar with this topic also by DER SPIEGEL International Article “China Battles West for Raw Material of the Future”. Do you wish to join GREENPEG SIMS? Subscribe by contacting us: contact@greenpeg.eu

The two-week-long Summer School in Tysfjord, Norway aims to give students strong practical insight into exploration for pegmatites, one of the most popular exploration targets in Europe now and in years to come. The Summer School will help students to familiarise themselves with the latest ground and airborne exploration technologies that meet the highest social and technical standards. Students will understand the economic aspects of mine development with a focus on exploration and investors´ approach in financing mining projects.

There is no participation fee and GREENPEG will cover accommodation and traveling costs. More information can be found in the promotional flyer and the application package. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact Mrs. Meng-Chun Lee (mengchun.lee@gkz-ev.de) from GKZ Freiberg for assistance.

GREENPEG partner NGU recently released a movie introducing into the developing of a cutting-edge piezoelectric instrument. While pegmatites are commonly thought to be relatively invisible to geophysical exploration methods, this approach addresses the susceptibility of, in particular, quartz pegmatites to respond to seismic deformation with an induced electric signal- the piezoelectric effect. The interpretation of the captured electric signal can aid in identifying and locating potentially buried pegmatite ores. The instrument's effectiveness and ability to play a significant role in the GREENPEG toolkit have been thoroughly tested with diverse seismic sources in varied geological environments. We are currently interpreting the data and refining the data acquisition process.

Sourcing the European energy transition from domestic resources – vision or wishful thinking? The one-day conference (April 25) questions Europe's raw materials supply security in the context of its economically valorizable raw material potential and of current geopolitics. It examines the existing and future framework conditions for mining projects and their downstream value chain (regulation, financing, permitting). The conference also focuses on the work of the European geological surveys for the territorial mapping of critical raw materials and highlights the potential for cooperation with Africa. On April 26th a site visit is offered to Bergby exploration project of United Lithium Ltd. In 2023 Sweden is taking over the EU Council Presidency. Sweden is one of the most important mining countries in Europe with great raw material potential for managing the energy and mobility transition and securing the raw material supply for future technologies. The conference is co-hosted by GREENPEG, the Swedish Mining Association SVEMIN and the European Technology Platform on Sustainable Mineral Resources (ETPSMR) and will take place in picturesque city of Uppsala, 20 minutes by train from Stockholm Airport. Participation is free of charge.

GREENPEG partners have been invited by Lithium Americas Corp. to verify individual methods of the GREENPEG toolset at their exploration sites in Ontario, Canada. Of particular interest for both sites is to test the new method of the regional trace-element-in-quartz mapping to establish the province-scale chemical zoning of the Allison Lake pegmatite field to vector towards areas with lithium-mineralized pegmatites and to establish the genetic relationship to the nearby Allison Lake Batholith. The field campaign will follow the joint annual meeting of the Geological Association of Canada, Mineralogical Association of Canada, and Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits held in Sudbury, Ontario, May 24-27, 2023, in which several GREENPEG partners will participate. In the frame of the conference, GREENPEG is organizing the session “Lithium in Pegmatites: Mineralogy, Petrogenesis and Classic to Innovative Exploration Techniques” together with Tania Martins from the Manitoba Geological Survey and Lee Groat from the University of British Columbia.

GREENPEG partners GKZ and University of Oslo (UiO) established a master student project cooperation with the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy of Mozambique and the Mining Academy Freiberg to study the applicability of GREENPEG exploration tools for pegmatites in tropical environments, i.e. in Mozambique. During the first stage of the cooperation, the master student Violeta Bunzula applies for Erasmus scholarship to perform petrological studies of pegmatite ores at the UIO and the initial field inspection in Mozambique is planned for the second half of April 2023.

Photo: The QuartzCorp - in front of the Drag community center (from left to right): Stein Fridfeldt, Christian Hadley, Axel Müller and Thomas Guillaume

GREENPEG invited 20 undergraduate and MSc students of energy engineering and social sciences to learn about value chains in the mining and energy industries during a one-week excursion through North-West Spain and Portugal in September 2022. These are students whose training does not normally deal with the topic of securing raw materials.

The aim was to raise awareness of the relevance of raw materials (not only metals but also aggregates and industrial minerals) and the role they play in society, in particular to manage the major challenges of our time such as the energy transition and climate protection as well as the development of advanced technologies. The one-week bus tour included the Mitruku Wave Energy Converter in the Bay of Biscay, Aldeadávila Hydropower Plant in the Province of Salamanca, as well as the Arañuelo solar farm for the energy sector and Saloro´s Barruecopardo tungsten mine and the Gonçalo Li-Pegmatite quarry in the Guarda district in Portugal for the mining sector.

The Iberian Peninsula has rich deposits of raw materials for the energy transition, but their extraction is also the subject of a lively debate among those affected. In order to better understand the positions of both sides, GREENPEG invited several representatives from both sides including associations, research, mining developers and politics to a Round Table at the University of Salamanca. On the agenda were nine questions that dealt with the challenges of sourcing the energy transition, implementing the European GREEN DEAL, but also the socio-economic challenges and user conflicts in this regard. Each question was followed by a poll of all participants for their views. Find out more about the Focus Group Meeting Spain in our December Newsletter Special and on Youtube.

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Events

The European Union will be at the virtual mineral exploration and mining convention, PDAC 2021, in Toronto, Canada from 8-11 March. GREENPEG project is presented at the EU Research & Innovation - Mineral exploration and extraction booth. Our project partners will keep office hours over the entire duration of the trade show. Join us! Book a meeting or have matchmaking with our researchers, exploitation manager, and coordinator.
The EU is attending the annual PDAC convention from 2018 to 2022 as part of its efforts to secure a sustainable supply of raw materials with the support of the ‘partnership instrument’ that funds global EU cooperation.

QUARTZ2021 – International Symposium on Quartz – organised in the framework of the GREENPEG Horizon2020 project "New Exploration Tools for European Pegmatite Green-Tech Resources"

QUARTZ2021 gathers petrologists, mineralogists, sedimentologists, economic geologists, mining and processing engineers with one study object in common: QUARTZ. Quartz, the source of crystalline silicon metal in solar cells and about 1000 other applications, is classified as EU’s critical raw material. It is one of the target commodities of the ongoing GREENPEG exploration technology project. Besides its broad industrial applications, quartz is increasingly used for improved understanding of ore-forming and petrogenetic processes. The conference is followed by an exciting 3-day excursion to industrial mineral and metal deposits in southern Norway, including the Tørdal pegmatites, Litangen quartzite mine and Kongsberg silver mines. Join the symposium and be with us on the forefront research!