Abstract
The sterilization of mineral resources makes considerable amounts inaccessible for future use and may be a barrier to the free supply of commodities. During the exploitation of mineral deposits, some parts of their resources become sterilized as inaccessible because of natural hazards or unfavorable economic conditions. Not mining land use and the social opposition against mining is the purpose of sterilization of considerable demonstrated mineral resources of deposits not yet engaged in exploitation. The native sulfur deposits in Poland are a good example of such “not mining” sterilization, which makes a considerable part of known resources inaccessible. On the northern border of the Carpathian Foredeep within the Miocene gypsum formation, the systematic exploration had demonstrated about 1 billion tons of sulfur resources located in the deposits of varied dimensions. The sulfur opencast mining and underground melting (the modified Frasch method) flourished from 1958 up to 1993. The increasing sulfur supply, recoverable from hydrocarbons, caused the closing down of sulfur mines, leaving a place with considerable untouched resources. About 67% of sulfur resources left by closed mines and of other explored but not exploited deposits are sterilized by the advancement of settlements, industrial plants, road construction, and by social opposition against mining.
Highlights
The sterilization of resources is understood as a lack or loss of the possibility of their exploitation [1]
Such sterilization occurs in the case of explored deposits not involved in exploitation, which are the conflict area with planned or performed land use, or with the environment protection exigencies. This may be a barrier to the free supply of mineral commodities. It is a matter of concern and has provoked attempts for resource self-guarding against non-mining land utilization [3,8,9,10]
Mineral resources formed by natural processes are not a renewable part of the environment and occur in the Earth’s crust in limited quantity
Summary
The sterilization of resources is understood as a lack or loss of the possibility of their exploitation [1] Most often, it occurs in areas where existing land use excludes any quarrying or underground mining [2,3,4]. Serious sterilization of mineral resources occurs when there is strong social opposition to mining, which makes it unacceptable Such sterilization occurs in the case of explored deposits not involved in exploitation, which are the conflict area with planned or performed land use, or with the environment protection exigencies. This may be a barrier to the free supply of mineral commodities. The sterilization threat is commonly signalized, but their real results are not presented
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