I recently a heard a story regarding the removal \transplantation of a village to enhance the production of a current coal mine in Germany.' Know anything about that? I also heard about garnet mining in the Vissytnia Oblast. On personal note interested in color and quality of garnet stones. Intriguing article for a non geologist and mining/resource investor.
Yes, these removals of villages are common around lignite mines. The companies pay very decent money to the villagers and buy them new homes, either nearby or in another location, people can decide. Often, it's a relatively good deal for the locals, but they still loose their home of course. The protests mostly comes from people living far away, not the affected locals.
I don't know much about the garnets there, but if you are interested, do some research about Granatka in Czech Republic. I've been there and it's a well-known locality for gem-quality garnets.
'Donbas rift system stretches further NW into Belarus. Hence the NE part of Ukraine hosts some potentially big natural gas deposits, maybe even oil. '
That there are very significant hydrocarbon deposits in the Dnipr-Donetsk basis is a well known fact. What we don't know, but can intuit is that these deposits are huge. Far larger than what is reported.
'One of the most successful stories of the practical application of the theory of the abyssal abiogenic origin of petroleum is the exploration in the Dnieper-Donetsk Basin (DDB), Ukraine [Krayushkin et al. 2002]. It is a cratonic rift basin running in a NW-SE direction between 30.6oE-40.5oE. Its northern and southern borders are traced from 50.0оN-51.8oN and 47.8oN-50.0oN, respectively. In the DDB’s northern, monoclinal flank the sedimentary sequence does not contain any salt-bearing beds, salt domes, nor stratovolcanoes and no sourse rocks. Also this flank is characterized by a dense network of the numerous syn-thethic and anti-thethic faults. These faults create the mosaic fault-block structure of crystalline basement and its sedimentary cover, a large number of the fault traps (the faulted anticlines) for oil and natural gas, an alternation uplifts (horsts) and troughs (grabens). The structure of the DDB’s northern flank excludes any lateral petroleum migration across it from either the Donets Foldbelt or the DDB’s Dnieper Graben.
Consequently, the DDB’s northern flank earlier was qualified as not perspective for petroleum production due to the absence of any “source rock of petroleum” and to the presence of an active, highly dynamic artesian aquifer. However, after a while the perspectivity of this area was re-interpreted, re-examined in compliance with the theory of the abyssal abiogenic origin of petroleum starting with the detailed analysis of the tectonic history and geological structure of the crystalline basement in the DDB’s northern monoclinal flank. Subsequently respective geophysical and geochemical procpecting programmes were accepted primarily for exploring deep-seated petroleum.
Late 1980’s-early 1990’s 61 wells were drilled in the DDB’s northern flank. 37 of them proved commercially productive (the exploration success rate is as high as 57 %) discovering commercial oil and gas strikes in the Khukhra, Chernetchina, Yuliyevka, and other areas. A total of 12 oil and gas fields discovered worth $ 4.38 billion in the prices of 1991 and $ 26.3 billion in the prices of 2008. For the discovery of these new oil and gas accumulations I.I.Chebanenko, V.A.Krayushkin, V.P.Klochko, E.S. Dvoryanin, V.V.Krot, P.T.Pavlenko, M.I.Ponomarenko, and G.D.Zabello, were awarded the State Prize of Ukraine in the Field of Science and Technology in 1992 [Chebanenko et al., 2002].
Today there are 50 commercial gas and oil fields known in the DDB’s northern flank. Data obtained from drilling in many of these areas shows that the crystalline basement of northern flank consists of amphibolites, charnockites, diorites, gneisses, granites, granodiorites, granito-gneisses, migmatites, peridotites, and schists. 32 of commercial fields have oil and/or gas accumulations in sandstones of the Middle and Lower Carboniferous age. 16 other fields contain reservoirs in the same sandstones but separately from them - in amphibolites, granites and granodiorites of crystalline basement as well. Two fields contain oil pools in the crystalline basement only. '
Thanks for the input, very interesting! This also explains why there are so many Russian geologists talking about abiotic oil.
There other thing is: If the hydrocarbon deposits of this area are that big, why has the Soviet Union not made use of it in a larger scale? In the 1970s, they put the Siberian fields into production, a huge logistical act. With the Donbas rift system being something geologists at the time have been aware of, there must be reason why they didn't develop it any further.
Thanks for the summary, that was interesting. I've been hearing for a while that the Ukrainian Shield is one of the most mineralized parts of Europe but never got around to looking into it more.
That could very well be the case actually. But on my quick research, I found nothing really proving that. And I guess given the current developments there, I don't expect any exploration activity anytime soon.
I think it would be worth to further study the literature about the area, but given the current developments there, this may be only of academic interest.
I recently a heard a story regarding the removal \transplantation of a village to enhance the production of a current coal mine in Germany.' Know anything about that? I also heard about garnet mining in the Vissytnia Oblast. On personal note interested in color and quality of garnet stones. Intriguing article for a non geologist and mining/resource investor.
Yes, these removals of villages are common around lignite mines. The companies pay very decent money to the villagers and buy them new homes, either nearby or in another location, people can decide. Often, it's a relatively good deal for the locals, but they still loose their home of course. The protests mostly comes from people living far away, not the affected locals.
I don't know much about the garnets there, but if you are interested, do some research about Granatka in Czech Republic. I've been there and it's a well-known locality for gem-quality garnets.
Thank you!
Thanks very much for sharing this interesting and informative article.
You're welcome!
'Donbas rift system stretches further NW into Belarus. Hence the NE part of Ukraine hosts some potentially big natural gas deposits, maybe even oil. '
That there are very significant hydrocarbon deposits in the Dnipr-Donetsk basis is a well known fact. What we don't know, but can intuit is that these deposits are huge. Far larger than what is reported.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260640446_Microbial_Techniques_for_Hydrocarbon_Exploration
From the above link.....
'One of the most successful stories of the practical application of the theory of the abyssal abiogenic origin of petroleum is the exploration in the Dnieper-Donetsk Basin (DDB), Ukraine [Krayushkin et al. 2002]. It is a cratonic rift basin running in a NW-SE direction between 30.6oE-40.5oE. Its northern and southern borders are traced from 50.0оN-51.8oN and 47.8oN-50.0oN, respectively. In the DDB’s northern, monoclinal flank the sedimentary sequence does not contain any salt-bearing beds, salt domes, nor stratovolcanoes and no sourse rocks. Also this flank is characterized by a dense network of the numerous syn-thethic and anti-thethic faults. These faults create the mosaic fault-block structure of crystalline basement and its sedimentary cover, a large number of the fault traps (the faulted anticlines) for oil and natural gas, an alternation uplifts (horsts) and troughs (grabens). The structure of the DDB’s northern flank excludes any lateral petroleum migration across it from either the Donets Foldbelt or the DDB’s Dnieper Graben.
Consequently, the DDB’s northern flank earlier was qualified as not perspective for petroleum production due to the absence of any “source rock of petroleum” and to the presence of an active, highly dynamic artesian aquifer. However, after a while the perspectivity of this area was re-interpreted, re-examined in compliance with the theory of the abyssal abiogenic origin of petroleum starting with the detailed analysis of the tectonic history and geological structure of the crystalline basement in the DDB’s northern monoclinal flank. Subsequently respective geophysical and geochemical procpecting programmes were accepted primarily for exploring deep-seated petroleum.
Late 1980’s-early 1990’s 61 wells were drilled in the DDB’s northern flank. 37 of them proved commercially productive (the exploration success rate is as high as 57 %) discovering commercial oil and gas strikes in the Khukhra, Chernetchina, Yuliyevka, and other areas. A total of 12 oil and gas fields discovered worth $ 4.38 billion in the prices of 1991 and $ 26.3 billion in the prices of 2008. For the discovery of these new oil and gas accumulations I.I.Chebanenko, V.A.Krayushkin, V.P.Klochko, E.S. Dvoryanin, V.V.Krot, P.T.Pavlenko, M.I.Ponomarenko, and G.D.Zabello, were awarded the State Prize of Ukraine in the Field of Science and Technology in 1992 [Chebanenko et al., 2002].
Today there are 50 commercial gas and oil fields known in the DDB’s northern flank. Data obtained from drilling in many of these areas shows that the crystalline basement of northern flank consists of amphibolites, charnockites, diorites, gneisses, granites, granodiorites, granito-gneisses, migmatites, peridotites, and schists. 32 of commercial fields have oil and/or gas accumulations in sandstones of the Middle and Lower Carboniferous age. 16 other fields contain reservoirs in the same sandstones but separately from them - in amphibolites, granites and granodiorites of crystalline basement as well. Two fields contain oil pools in the crystalline basement only. '
Thanks for the input, very interesting! This also explains why there are so many Russian geologists talking about abiotic oil.
There other thing is: If the hydrocarbon deposits of this area are that big, why has the Soviet Union not made use of it in a larger scale? In the 1970s, they put the Siberian fields into production, a huge logistical act. With the Donbas rift system being something geologists at the time have been aware of, there must be reason why they didn't develop it any further.
That’s a fantastic article. I loved the tidbits about how iron becomes oxidized and why selenium is used for fight jets
Glad to hear you liked it! But it's scandium. ;)
Thanks for the summary, that was interesting. I've been hearing for a while that the Ukrainian Shield is one of the most mineralized parts of Europe but never got around to looking into it more.
That could very well be the case actually. But on my quick research, I found nothing really proving that. And I guess given the current developments there, I don't expect any exploration activity anytime soon.
I think it would be worth to further study the literature about the area, but given the current developments there, this may be only of academic interest.