The UK Critical Minerals Strategy (BEIS, 2022) includes a commitment to “begin a nationalscale assessment of the critical minerals within the UK. By March 2023, we will collate
geoscientific data and identify target areas of potential”. This report provides that national-scale
assessment of the geological potential for critical raw materials in the UK. It represents the
published output of a study, jointly funded by the British Geological Survey and the Department
for Business and Trade, which reviewed available geoscientific data in order to identify areas of
potential geological prospectivity for critical raw materials in the UK.
Critical raw materials (CRMs) are those mineral commodities that are both economically
important and at risk of supply disruption. The commodities addressed in this report are those
identified as critical to the UK by the Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre (CMIC) (Lusty et al.,
2021). These CRMs are currently obtained from mining across the world, but at the time of
writing none are produced in the UK, although tungsten has been mined in recent years. Some
CRMs such as lithium, tin and graphite are typically the primary products of mines, whereas
others are produced as co- or by-products of major commodities such as gold, copper or zinc.
Current understanding of the UK’s mineral resource endowment rests largely on evidence from
historic mining and exploration, together with targeted academic research. The UK has an
extensive history of mining that dates to prehistoric times. Gold, barite, fluorite, gypsum, potash
and polyhalite are among the commodities that are currently mined, and exploration for many
raw materials is occurring across the whole of the UK.
The work presented in this report follows a methodology known as a mineral systems approach,
which relies on the concept that all mineral deposits of a certain type were formed by a
combination of particular geological processes (McCuaig et al., 2010). The processes that must
operate for a mineral deposit to form are identified and translated into mappable target criteria
derived from available datasets. Key datasets to be used would typically include geological
maps, geochemical soil and stream sediment maps, geophysical maps, and mineral occurrence
databases. The UK has full geological map coverage, but other datasets are incomplete, with
high-resolution geophysical data only being available for limited areas. New stream sediment
geochemistry maps were created as part of this work and are available on the CMIC interactive
map portal1
, but the whole country is not covered for all elements. These data limitations mean
that this report only provides a knowledge-driven assessment of geological potential for CRM
prospectivity across the UK. It provides maps for CRMs (grouped or singly as geologically
appropriate) indicating the areas where the geological criteria have been met and thus there is
potential for deposits of these CRMs to occur. It is important to note that the maps represent
areas of potential prospectivity, not where deposits of critical minerals are guaranteed to be
found, and also that mineral deposits could be found beyond the identified prospective areas,
where localised geological conditions are suitable. The areas identified in the maps can be
considered as targets for more detailed research and exploration. This report focuses solely on
the geological potential and does not consider other aspects such as environmental
designations and planning considerations that may affect the development of a mineral deposit.
Combining all the individual maps highlights areas that are prospective for several CRMs and
are thus priority for further geological investigations. From north to south, these areas include:
areas of prospective geology around Loch Maree near Gairloch; parts of the central Highlands
and Aberdeenshire; areas of prospective geology in mid-County Tyrone in Northern Ireland;
parts of Cumbria; parts of the North Pennine Orefield; areas in north-west Wales and
Pembrokeshire; and south-west England. These areas should now be the focus for collection of
new geological, geochemical and geophysical data, in order to identify new CRM prospects for
detailed investigation