Metallic Mineral Resources in Finland and Fennoscandia: A Major European Raw-Materials Source for the Future

Abstract

AbstractMineral-based materials and products are used either directly or indirectly in almost every area of our life. The growth of the world’s population, rapid development in emerging economies, urbanization and the expanding middle class have led to increasing competition for mineral raw materials, and created challenges to discover and develop new ore deposits.Finland is part of Fennoscandian, which is a traditional producer of mineral raw materials. In spite of a long mining history in the region, very large mineral resources still remain unexploited. Big deposits and extensive metal range are explained by the complex and lengthy plate-tectonic evolution of the crust of the Earth in the region. Based on 2007 levels of consumption within the European Union, the known and assumed mineral resources of Fennoscandia would potentially cover the consumption of chromium, lithium, nickel, rare earth elements, tantalum, titanium, vanadium and probably also of niobium for more than 50 years. In addition to these metals, there also are considerable resources for a number of other commodities.The most important ore deposits in Finland, on the basis of the nominal in situ value of the remaining known and assumed mineral resources, host significant volumes of nickel, chromium, copper, vanadium, iron, zinc, niobium, gold, platinum and palladium. Most of Finland’s ore deposits can geologically be classified as follows: (1) chromium, platinum group metals, nickel, and iron-vanadium ores associated with mafic–ultramafic intrusive rocks; (2) copper–zinc ores associated with volcanic rocks; (3) orogenic gold ores; (4) unique Outokumpu-type copper–cobalt ores; and (5) the gigantic and unique graphitic mica schist-hosted nickel–zinc–copper ore of Talvivaara. The ore output of metallic mines in Finland is estimated to increase to 70 million tons by 2020. It can also be expected that a number of new deposits will be discovered and many new commodities, critical for modern industries, will be produced in Finland for both domestic use and for world markets in the coming decades.KeywordsPlatinum MetalLayered IntrusionOrogenic Gold DepositUltramafic IntrusionLondon Metal ExchangeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.