A thematic issue on current developments of economic geology research in Finland published!
A new, now released thematic issue of the internationally renowned peer-review journal Mineralium Deposita (vol. 55, issue 8, Nov. 2020) is a contribution to show the important mineral potential of Finland. It may also encourage mineral exploration in other parts of Europe, which are largely (and surprisingly) under-explored.
This publication collects research by top Finnish geoscientists. It includes a strong contribution by the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) researchers.
Finland is within the centre of the Precambrian Fennoscandian shield and is geologically similar to other mineral-rich shield areas of the world, such as Western Australia, South Africa, Canada, and Brazil. Finland has a long tradition in mining and related industries. Unlike many other parts of Europe, Finland currently has a large number of active metal mines and smelting and refinery capacities, and still has a major potential for new significant mineral discoveries.
The globally recognised mineral potential of the Fennoscandian shield is reflected by Finland’s share of about 25 % of all budgeted mineral exploration within the EU during, at least, the last 10 years, when as that of Sweden is only slightly less of that. It shows how important the global mining industry sees the Fennoscandian shield. Equally, the annual reports of the Fraser Institute have appointed Finland within the global top ten countries with favourable mining jurisdiction since 2007, and for 2019, with the best policy climate for mining investment in the world.
The main commodities for metal exploration and mine development projects in Finland have been Au, Co, Cu, Ni, PGEs, and Zn. The most recent are the ‘battery minerals’ (Co, Li, V, Ni, Cu, and graphite). The current metallogenic research in Finland is focused on the refinement of exploration models, assessments of regional mineral potential, development of new exploration tools with better capacities for vectoring towards ores, and gathering new knowledge of mineral systems. As Precambrian mineral belts are major hosts to many types of ores and globally significant sources of a wide range of metals and minerals, the results of studies completed in Finland are also applicable to mineral exploration on other shield areas.
The papers of this thematic issue present the current achievements and trends of research on magmatic Ni-Cu-PGE, scandium bearing Fe-Ti-P, gold-rich Cu-Zn VMS, orogenic gold, and graphite deposits:
It is expected that the topics of this thematic issue will generate broad international interest and it is also expected that it will further boost exploration interest in Finland.
The publication is available as open access from the link below:
Eilu, P., Molnár, F. and Peltonen, P. (eds.) 2020. Current developments of economic geology research in Finland. Mineralium Deposita, Volume 55, issue 8, November 2020.
