GSI formulates 1055 programs for field season 2024-25, focus on strategic and critical minerals like lithium

GSI formulates 1055 programs for field season 2024-25, focus on strategic and critical minerals like lithium

Subject: Geography

Section: Climatology

Context:

• The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has planned 1055 scientific programs for its 2024-25 Field Season, including 392 mineral development projects, which cover G2, G3, G4, and offshore explorations.

Details:

• A significant focus is on discovering strategically important minerals, especially critical ones like lithium.
• Additionally, there are 133 projects aimed at mineral discovery, which show promise for future exploration at the G4 stage.
• Minerals such as antimony, cobalt, gallium, graphite, lithium, nickel, niobium, and strontium, among others, are critical for green technologies, high-tech equipment, aviation, and national defence manufacturing needs.
• India has a high import dependence for many of these minerals.

Strategically critical:

• In FY-25, the Geological Survey of India (GSI) approved 188 projects focused on strategically important mineral commodities, such as rare earth elements (REE), graphite, lithium, vanadium, and platinum group of elements (PGE). This represents a nearly 50% increase from the previous year’s target.
• Additionally, 111 projects are dedicated to natural hazard studies or public good geoscience with societal benefits.

Rare Earth Elements (REEs):

• There are 17 REEs — 15 lanthanides (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium; neodymium, promethium; samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium), scandium, and yttrium. The lanthanide elements are divided into two groups — light and heavy.
• REEs are used in industrial applications including electronics, clean energy, aerospace, automotive and defence.
• The manufacture of permanent magnets is the single largest and most important end-use for REEs, accounting for 43 per cent of demand in 2021.

Exploration of REEs:

• The explorations are spread across states like Chhattisgarh (Raigarh), Maharashtra (Nagpur, Chandrapur, and Sindhudurg), Bihar, Jharkhand (Giridh, Simdega, and Koderna), Odisha (Nayagarh, Ganjam, and Angul), West Bengal (Purulia), Arunachal Pradesh (Kurung Kumey), Assam (West Karbi Anglong), Meghalaya (South West Khasi Hills and Ri-Bhoi), Uttar Pradesh (Lalitpur and Sonbhadra), Andhra Pradesh (Anantapur, East Godavari, Alluri Sitharama Raju, Chittoor, Annamayya, Nellore, and Prakasam), Kerala (Kottayam, Idukki, Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, and Wayanad), Telangana (Bhadradri and Jayashankar), Tamil Nadu (Kanyakumari), Karnataka (Chamarajanagar), Gujarat (Chhota Udepur, Aravalli, Mehsana, and Banaskantha), and Rajasthan (Alwar, Udaipur, Sirohi, and Barmer), among others.

National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET):

• The NMET was established by the Government of India in 2015, in pursuance of subsection(1) of Section 9C of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, with the objective of expediting mineral exploration in the country.

United Nations Framework Classification (UNFC):

• The United Nations Framework Classification for Resources (UNFC) is a resource project-based and principles-based classification system for defining the environmental-socio-economic viability and technical feasibility of projects to develop resources.
• UNFC provides a consistent framework to describe the level of confidence of the future quantities produced by the project.
• It is a universally applicable scheme for classifying/evaluating energy and mineral reserves/resources.
• It was adopted in 2004 by the United Nations Economic Commission of Europe (UNECE).
• The UNFC consists of a 3-dimensional system with the following three axes:
• The UNFC is a three-digit code-based system wherein:

1. First digit represents economic viability axis,
2. Second digit represent feasibility axis
3. Third digit represent geologic axis

• Each of these axes has further codes in decreasing order.

E Axis:

• The degree of economic viability (economic or potentially economic or intrinsically economic) is assessed in the course of pre feasibility and feasibility studies.
• A prefeasibility study provides a preliminary assessment with a lower level of accuracy than that of a feasibility study, by which economic viability is assessed in detail.
• The Economic viability has codes 1, 2 and 3 in decreasing order.

F Axis:

• Feasibility assessment studies form an essential part of the process of assessing a mining project.
• The typical successive stages of feasibility assessment i.e., geological study as initial stage followed by prefeasibility study and feasibility study/mining report are well defined.
• The feasibility assessment has codes 1, 2 and 3.

G Axis:

• Geological Assessment, which is more or less like the classification as per ISP adopted by GSI and other agencies in India.
• The process of geological assessment is generally conducted in stages of increasing details.
• The typical successive stages of geological investigation i.reconnaissance, prospecting, general exploration and detailed exploration, generate resource data with clearly defined degrees of geological assurance.
• The mineral extraction process typically begins with the G4 stage.
• These four stages are therefore used as geological assessment categories in the classification.
• The geological assessment has 4 codes i.e.
  • Detailed Exploration (G1)
  • General Exploration (G3)
  • Preliminary Exploration (G3)
  • Reconnaissance (G4)
• The G3 stage is further categorised into a six-step process to extract Lithium from Salt-flat brines or Mineral ores.
• Stage 1: Geological Surveys: Mapping on a more extensive scale and linking prepared maps with a top grid. Assessment of lithology, structure, surface mineralisation, analysis of old workings etc.
• Stage 2: Perform Geochemical sampling rock type wise, soil survey.
• Stage 3: Detailed ground geophysical work and borehole logging.
• Stage 4: Check the technicality of pits/trench to explore the mineralised zone and drill borehole spacing
• Stage 5: Sampling for litho geochemical from a well-known section, pit/trench and core sample
• Stage 6: Petrographic and mineralogical studies: the combined study of rocks in thin sections and the chemistry, crystal structure and physical properties of the mineral constituents of rocks.
• According to the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), apart from the thorough examination of the above-mentioned geological axis, the proposal to mine minerals also needs to be assessed from a feasibility point of view along with the prospects of economic viability.

Source: TH BL