GeoERA Raw Materials Monograph : the past and the future

ABSTRACT: GeoERA Minerals projects have produced data aimed at supporting Europe’s minerals sector and to assist the European Commission to realise its goals for raw materials. Data has been compiled on mineral occurrences and mineral provinces across Europe, in particular, areas with potential to host Critical Raw Materials. Anecdotal evidence from the minerals sector provides an indication of the likelihood of exploration leading to mine development. For every 1,000 mineral showings examined, only 100 may receive further exploration work and of those 100, only 10 may warrant more detailed sampling either through trenching, drilling or other means and of those 10 only 1 may proceed to an evaluation through a full feasibility study which itself has only 50% chance of being positive. Following this, any project for which a mine proposal is made must undergo a full evaluation and permitting by authorities including full public consultation. The proposal may or may not pass this scrutiny. In terms of a schedule, the generally accepted minimum time frame from discovery to production is 10 years and usually much more, up to 20 years.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Rock avalanches clusters along the northern Chile coastal scarp

Rock avalanche clusters can be relevant indicators of the evolution of specific regions. They can be used to define: the type and intensity of triggering events, their recurrence and potential probability of occurrence, the progressive damage of the rock mass, the mechanisms of transport and deposition, as well as the environmental conditions at the time of occurrence. This paper tackles these subjects by analyzing two main clusters of rock avalanches (each event between 0.6 and 30 Mm(3)), separated by few kilometers and located along the coastal scarp of Northern Chile, south of Iquique. It lies, hence, within a seismic area characterized by a long seismic gap that ended on April 1st, 2014 with a M-w 8.2 earthquake. The scar position, high along the coastal cliff, supports seismic triggering for these clusters. The deposits' relative positions are used to obtain the sequence of rock avalanching events for each cluster. The progressive decrease of volume in the sequence of rock avalanches forming each cluster fits well the theoretical models for successive slope failures. These sequences seem to agree with those derived by dating the deposits with ages spanning between 4 kyr and 60 kyr. An average uplift rate of 0.2 mm/yr in the last 40 kyr is estimated for the coastal plain giving a further constraint to the rock avalanche deposition considering the absence of reworking of the deposits. Volume estimates and datings allow the estimation of an erosion rate contribution of about 0.098-0.112 mm km(-2) yr(-1) which is well comparable to values presented in the literature for earthquake induced landslides. We have carried out numerical modeling in order to analyze the mobility of the rock avalanches and examine the environmental conditions that controlled the runout In doing so, we have considered the sequence of individual rock avalanches within the specific clusters, thus including in the models the confining effect caused by the presence of previous deposits. Bingham rheology was the most successful at explaining both the distance and the geometry of the observed events.PRIN-MIUR, 2010E89BPY_007 International Centre of Geohazard

International database of Glacially Induced Faults

We provide a GIS data inventory of confirmed and proposed glacially-induced faults. Stresses, perturbated as a response to the advance and retreat of continental ice sheets and glaciers, can reactivate pre-existing faults. Previously referred to as "PostGlacial Faults" (PGFs), these faults are now called "Glacially-Induced Faults" (GIFs). More than a dozen kilometre-long and several metre-high fault-scarps have been identified in northern Fennoscandia since extensive investigations started in the 1960s and 1970s. Similar faults, but by far not of such dimensions, have also been described in eastern Canada. In other formerly glaciated areas in Europe, e.g., the southern parts of Sweden, Norway and Finland, the southern Baltic Sea, Denmark, northern Germany and Poland, and the Baltic countries, GIFs have rarely been observed and discussed in the literature. However, the number of studies with reliable field evidence for proposing such faults has increased considerably in recent years. The estimated fault movements are of minor magnitude, though, as compared with those in northern Fennoscandia. The database contains the confirmed GIFs in northern Fennoscandia including north-western Russia. The geological surveys in Norway, Sweden and Finland analysed recent LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) data from their countries, which helped uncover new faults and revise the geometry of the existing ones. In addition, we include several proposed GIFs outside this area, e.g., in southern Sweden, Denmark and Germany. Ongoing work suggests the occurrence of GIFs in Iceland, Canada and Antarctica. The database will be continually updated, considering new results. A summarized description of the GIF in this database is given in: Steffen, H., Olesen, O., and Sutinen, R. (2021). Glacially-Triggered Faulting. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, ca. 450 pp., expected publication February 2021