Geology and Nonfuel Mineral Deposits of Greenland, Europe, Russia, and Northern Central Asia

This report summarizes the geology and nonfuel mineral resources of Greenland, Europe, Russia, and Northern Central Asia and is a preliminary part of a major U.S. Geological Survey study called the Global Mineral Resource Assessment Project. This report is one of a series of regional reports covering the world and provides basic data on the identified resources and geologic setting, together with a brief appraisal of the potential for undiscovered mineral resources. The data in the regional report are derived from published information. An important source of data on production statistics, economic factors that affect the mineral industries, and historical information, is available in U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) publications Minerals Yearbook and the annual Mineral Commodity Summaries (available at http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals).

In terms of production of metallic commodities and industrial minerals in recent years (U.S. Geological Survey, 2003, 2004, 2005), Greenland, the countries comprising Europe and Northern Central Asia, and Russia were major or moderate producers of aluminum, antimony, arsenic, asbestos, barite, bentonite boron, chromium, cobalt, copper, diamond, diatomite, feldspar, fluorspar, gemstones, gold, graphite, gypsum indium, iron ore, iron ore, kaolin, kyanite, lead, lithium, magnesium, mercury, mica (sheet), molybdenum, nickel, perlite, phosphate, platinum-group metals, potash, pumice, rare-earth metals, salt, silicon, silver, sulfur, tin, titanium, and zinc. A recurrent theme of this report is that mineral resources are associated with large-scale geologic processes that reoccur in time and space. The geologic distribution of mineral resources is intimately related to the geologic history of host rocks and structures. Increased knowledge about the geologic fabric around deposits and the processes that control the regional and local distribution of mineral resources will lead to improvement in predicting the location of new deposits.