GREENPEG – exploration for pegmatite minerals to feed the energy transition: first steps towards the Green Stone Age

Abstract

The GREENPEG project, which is funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 ‘Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials’ programme, aims to develop multi-method exploration toolsets for the identification of European, buried, small-scale (0.01-5 million m3) pegmatite ore deposits of the Nb-Y-F (NYF) and Li-Cs-Ta (LCT) chemical types. The project is being coordinated by the Natural History Museum of the University of Oslo and involves three exploration services/mining operators, one geological survey, three consulting companies and five academic institutions from eight European countries. The target raw materials are Li, high-purity quartz for silica and metallic Si, ceramic feldspar, REE, Ta, Be and Cs, which are naturally concentrated in granitic pegmatites. Silicon and Li are two of the most sought-after green technology metals as they are essential for photovoltaics and Li-ion batteries for electric cars, respectively. GREENPEG will change the focus of exploration strategies from large-volume towards small-volume, high quality ores and overcome the lack of exploration technologies for pegmatite ore deposits by developing toolsets tailored to these ore types. This contribution focuses on the methods applied in the GREENPEG project and as such provides a potential pathway towards the ’Green Stone Age’ from the perspective of pegmatite-sourced minerals.

Sentinel-1 and ALOS data for lineament extraction: a comparative study

“…The GREENPEG consortium project (https://www.greenpeg.eu/) includes thirteen European institutions from eight countries, namely: (i) five academic institutions, (ii) four exploration services/mining operators, (iii) two consulting companies, (iv) one geological survey, and (v) one non-profit helix association of administration, industry and academia [2] . Overall, GREENPEG aims to develop and test an innovative set of multi-method exploration tools for both NYF and LCT pegmatites.…”

“…Overall, GREENPEG aims to develop and test an innovative set of multi-method exploration tools for both NYF and LCT pegmatites. The ultimate goal is to find buried and outcropping pegmatite deposits within Europe [2] .…”

“…The South Leinster area contains a linear pegmatite field of ~100 km long with 18 known LCT pegmatites emplaced in either Ordovician metasedimentary or, more often, ~400 Ma granitic rocks of the S-type Leinster Granite batholith [2,13] . The unzoned to weakly zoned LCT pegmatites are mainly hosted within a NE-SW regional structure, the East Carlow Deformation Zone (ECDZ), an approximately 2 km wide zone that encompasses the granite-metasedimentary rock contact [13,14] .…”

“…The Wolfsberg area corresponds to a pegmatite field with 25 km 2 , where 14 known LCT dikes are known to be emplaced in either amphibolite or mica-schist rocks [2,15] . They are spatially associated with simple pegmatites and leucogranites formed during an extensional event in Permian times [16] .…”

“…Meeting the demand for critical raw materials (CRM) and other commodities needed for the production and storage of "green" energy is crucial for achieving the decarbonization targets set by the European Climate Foundation by 2050 [1] . Such commodities can be found in pegmatite rocks and several recent works have been focused on their characterization for more efficient exploration and development of new tools [2][3][4][5] .…”