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 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.

Find out more about GREENPEG and follow us with your subscription to GREENPEG Newsletter!

The International Clustering Workshop aims to stimulate new inter-regional clustering activities and project ideas among the participants, with a focus on raw materials value chain. The workshop is led by the H2020 MINE.THE.GAP project which consists of 9 experienced clusters across Europe. The clusters will be the guiding hand through the process. In addition, the co-organiser H2020 GREENPEG project will provide support by sharing their innovative technologies for exploration and potential follow up research ideas. Companies, research institutes and other relevant actors in the raw materials sector are welcome to bring your ideas over and join the discussion. The workshop also provides a great opportunities to network with people interested in solving problems through innovation.  The workshop is a physical meeting held in English. It is free of charge to all those who wish to attend. More information will be soon updated on the MINE.THE.GAP website. If you have further questions, please

The 2022 Living Planet Symposium organised by European Space Agency (ESA) took place on 23–27 May 2022 in Bonn, Germany with record-breaking numbers of more than 5000 participants. The event joined representatives from space agencies and international organisations and corporations, business and enterprise leaders, and world-class scientists from across the world. They have all come together to discuss how Earth observation can contribute to science and society, namely its role in advancing the comprehension of our planet and how it is being affected by climate change. With 240 science sessions, the symposium covered distinct thematic areas from Earth’s core, cryosphere, land and atmosphere.

The GREENPEG project participated with a Poster Presentation on Wednesday, the dedicated Climate Day, showing how the project results are essential for sustainable natural resources and energy, namely for the exploration of LCT pegmatites that are considered a major source of critical raw materials for the energy transition. Moreover, the work presented by the GREENPEG team, entitled “Exploiting Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data for province scale exploration: the GREENPEG project case studies”, highlighted the collaboration and integration of different instruments, namely between the Copernicus Sentinel Series. The work was very well received by either geoscientists or by data analysts and software developers, all recognizing the importance of the use of satellites as a non-invasive tool of the exploration chain.