RUSSIAN KARELIA’S INDUSTRIAL MINERAL POTENTIAL: NEW WAYS OF DEVELOPMENT.

A large group of commercial minerals known as “industrial minerals” is used worldwide. Industrial minerals are understood as useful mineral deposits, i.e. all minerals extracted from the earth, except for energy raw materials, metals, water and gemstones, and used for industrial purposes owing to their physical, chemical and mechanical properties. The geological structure of the continental eastern Fennoscandian Shield (Karelian Region), the basement of the East European Platform, is controlled by its long geological evolution from 3.5 Ga to the present. The extraction and use of mineral resources in what is now Russian Karelia began in the Old Russian state founded in the 9^th century, when large-scale mica production was launched followed by salt production in salt works on the White Sea shore. The late 18^th century saw the production of Tivdian-Belogorsk and Ruskeala marbles, Olonets gabbrodiabase, Shoksha crimson quartzite and Serdobol granite in stone quarries. The first attempts to study shungite were made in the 19^th century. Long-term studies of Karelia’s industrial minerals have shown that Karelia’s mineral potential comprises a variety of essential multi-purpose industrial minerals such as diamond, graphite, shungite, kyanite, garnet, fluorite, quartz, pegmatitic and magmatic feldspar, muscovite, talc, alkaline asbestos and others. Of great importance are Precambrian dimension stone and crushed stone used in civil engineering. It is important to update technological methods for optimum processing of priority industrial minerals such as graphite, kyanite, fluorite, high-purity quartz, soapstone and shungite rocks. Dimension stone and aggregate stone production has a good outlook for the future comparing Karelian resources with a similar one in Finland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]