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(1) The mineral deposits are the base resources of materials used in building and environmental engineering applications, especially available locally. Two wells of volcanic tuff deposits in the Khmelnytsky region of Ukraine were investigated in this regard. (2) Physical-mechanical, chemical, and mineralogical analyses of the core samples were carried out. (3) The tuff samples were characterized by visible colour, low compressive strength (4.34–11.13 MPa), and high water absorption (30%). The dominant minerals of the upper horizon were chlorite, pyroxene, kaolinite, quartz, hematite, and calcite, while those of the lower horizon included analcime, quartz, hematite, and calcite. (4) The studied volcanic tuffs seem to be only partly useful for construction applications, and considering their visible colour, the exterior decoration of engineering objects could be possible. The peculiarity of the minerals of the upper horizon is that their crystals consist of Fe2+. An analysis of existing scientific data made it possible to say that these minerals can be considered as an alternative to expensive metallic iron in reducing the toxicity of chromium, uranium, and halogenated organic compounds. The significant presence of hematite allows the application of tuffs to technologies of water purification from As5+, As3+, Cr6+, Cr3+, U6+, Sb5+, and Se4+ oxyanions.

The integrated use of minerals facilitates the reduction in the impact of mining on the environment. Many industries are in need of quartz sand in huge quantities. Quality requirements for quartz sand often refer to a high percentage of SiO2 and low content of Fe2O3, as well as the absence of clay impurities. The extraction of conditioned quartz sands and their close geographic location to consumers are economically profitable. Due to their wide distribution in Ukraine and their subsurface occurrence, glauconite-bearing Paleogene sands attract special attention. It has been experimentally confirmed that such sands are capable of dry magnetic separation. As a result of dry magnetic separation, three magnetic fractions and a nonmagnetic fraction were isolated. Glauconite was the dominant mineral in the magnetic fraction at 0.8 Tl. Their content was 5.1% and 2.8% in sand, respectively. The nonmagnetic fractions obtained from two studied samples were at 80.4 and 80.7%, respectively. XRF analyses showed that in each nonmagnetic fraction the content of SiO2 is at 96.9 wt.% and 93.7 wt.%, and Fe2O3 at 0.26 wt.% and 0.87 wt.%, respectively. In XRD, the nonmagnetic fractions contained 94.8% and 93.1% of sand, and 0.8% and 1.9% of glauconite, respectively. The values of the fineness moduli for the nonmagnetic fractions were 1.10 and 1.85. The size classes of quartz sands were 0.63 + 0 mm and −0.8 + 0 mm. Compared with current Ukrainian standards, the nonmagnetic fractions can be used in the building industry as well as in the manufacturing of glass, with the addition of a certain amount of glass from recycling.

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We used LA-ICP-MS U-Pb data for detrital zircon to constrain the Maximum Depositional Age (MDA) and provenance of clastic sedimentary rocks of the Volyn-Orsha sedimentary basin, which filled an elongated (~625×250 km) depression in SW Baltica and attained ~900 m in thickness. Eighty-six zircons out of one hundred and three yielded concordant dates, with most of them (86 %) falling in the time interval between 1655 ± 3 and 1044 ± 16 Ma and clustering in two peaks at ca. 1630 and 1230 Ma. The remaining zircons yielded dates older than 1800 Ma. The MDA is defined by a tight group of three zircons with a weighted average age of 1079 ± 8 Ma. This age corresponds to the time of a clockwise ~90° rotation of Baltica and the formation of the Grenvillian – Sveconorwegian – Sunsas orogenic belts. Subsidence was facilitated by the presence of eclogites derived from subducted oceanic crust. The sediments of the Orsha sub-basin in the northeastern part of the basin were derived from the local crystalline basement, whereas the sediments in the Volyn sub-basin, extending to the margin of Baltica, were transported from the orogen between Laurentia, Baltica, and Amazonia.