5.5.2011
Mineral Raw Resources

They say the treasures lie under the feet ad verbum at every turn of Donbass. And that’s true.

 

The region has the richest mineral base: coal (reserves of it are estimated at 13.9 billion tons), rock salt, limestone, refractory clay, cement raw materials, chalk, gypsum, and others. They totaled almost 50 species.

 

Kimberlitic pipes with small fragments of diamond crystals were detected in the North of the Azov crystalline massif.  In the North - natural gas. Coal deposits contain vast reserves of valuable energy resources - methane.

 

The bowels of the earth contain practically the whole periodic table. 

 

Donetsk coal basin in the chain of coal basins stretching from the South Ireland and South Wales though Radstock, Bath, Kent, Strait of Dover and Ruhr and farther to Chemnitz, Plzen, Silesia to Ukraine and South Russia is the most powerful and extensive. The coal of four grades lies here: gas, jet coal, coke and anthracite and semi anthracite coal.

 

In the region are also significant deposits of rock salt (Artyomovskoye and Slavic field). Extraction of "white stone" almost completely satisfies the need of the country in salt. 

 

Mineral raw base for building materials industry and the steel industry is provided by:

 

• dolomites, lime stones (fluxing and constructive in Dokuchayevsk, Komsomolskote, Novotroytskoye lands);
• fire clays in Chasovyarskoye, Novoryarskoye, Andreyevskoye, Zatyshnskoye, Veselovskoye and Oktyabrskoye lands and  plastic (ceramic) clays in Kramatorsk, Kurdyumovskoye, Kuteynykovskoye, Nikolayevskoye, Ray-Alexandrovskoye and Nikiforovskoye  lands;
• marl (Amvrosiyevsky area, round Kramatorsk lands);
• gypsum (Artyomovsk lands);
• china clays (kaolin) in Vladymyrskoye, Bogorodytskoye and Kathrinovskoye lands;
• chalk in Slavyansk lands;
• building and silica sands, granite in Telmanovky and Volodarsky lands;
• quartzite, etc.

 

Besides the region has reserves of mercury in Nikitovskiy lands; mineral paint (ocher) - Yasnopolyana lands; phosphate (Reznikovsky and Osykovskoe lands); asbestos and graphite in the Azov Sea lands. Found out the deposits of nepheline syenite (aluminum ore - Kalinino Shevchenkivske lands); fluorite (fluorspar - Petrovo Gnutovskoe and Pokrovo-Kireyevskoe deposits); vermiculite (Kamennomogilnoe lands); iron ore in the Sea of Azov area; potash salts and davsonite reserves round  Slavyansk.

 

North lands of the region are rich in oil and gas deposits (Dnieprovsk and Donetsk area) but practically undeveloped ones as well as in Black Sea and Crimean oil and gas province which also belongs to Azov Sea area. 
The mineral water sources are produced in Dobropolye and Novoazovsk lands.