Earth Mineral Resources

Course goals

- Written communication skills: writing a short paper with economic geological and societal relevant aspects.
- Verbal communication skills: oral presentation of the written paper
- Ability to work in a team: most practical assignments are done in a team. Writing and presenting the technical paper also is a team assignment.
- Analytical/quantitative skills: solving various exercises related to the exploration of mineral resources
- Technical skills: hands-on experience in using tools for the analysis and modelling of geophysical and satellite data to explore and characterise new mineral resources.
 

Content

Minerals have been important to humankind since prehistoric times, as evidenced by the names of the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Over the past century, demand for minerals has steadily increased, mainly because of global population growth, but now this demand is rising rapidly due to the electrification of society driven by the climate change and energy transition. The increasing demand applies not only to critical minerals (such as rare earth metals), but also to bulk metals (e.g. copper, nickel, aluminium), salts (e.g. lithium salt) and surface minerals (e.g. sand).
The growing global demand requires, among other things, the exploration and exploitation of new mineral geo-resources, which, however, is becoming increasingly difficult due to global geopolitical developments, such as the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. These developments have demonstrated that there is an urgent need, particularly for Europe, to become less dependent on the current major mineral-producing countries, notably China and Russia.
This course covers in two modules the occurrence, formation and exploration of the most important groups of (non-hydrocarbon) mineral geological resources and their economic-geological aspects in today's society.
In the first module geological, economic and societal aspects of the most common mineral resources and deposits will be treated in a series of topical lectures on:

• Occurrence and exploitation of metal ores (e.g. bulk industrial metals, rare earth metals)
• Ore-forming processes and ore deposits
• Rare Earth Elements (REE) and other critical mineral resources
• Critical mineral resources in The Netherlands
• Salt deposits, and mining of salt in The Netherlands
• Surface mineral resources (i.e. sand, clay, gravel)

The second module of the course introduces (sustainable) exploration and mining methods for mineral resources, and includes lectures and practical assignments on:

• Mineral exploration stages such as greenfields, brownfields and on-mine
• Geophysical exploration methods (i.e., gravity; magnetics; electrical; electromagnetics)
• Satellite remote sensing of surface minerals

Moreover, parallel to the second module of the course, a short technical paper must be written and presented orally on a topic related to the (sustainable) exploration of mineral resources. Instructions and a list of possible topics will be provided at the end of the first module. Depending on the number of course participants, the paper must be written individually or in a team.