Not Mining Sterilization of Explored Mineral Resources. The Example of Native Sulfur Deposits in Poland Case History

Edyta Sermet and Marek Nieć
Additional contact information
Edyta Sermet: Faculty of Geology, Geophysics and Environmental Protection, AGH University of Science and Technology, Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Cracow, Poland
Marek Nieć: Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wybickiego 7a, 31-261 Cracow, Poland

Resources, 2021, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-12

Abstract: The sterilization of mineral resources makes considerable amounts inaccessible for future use and may be a barrier to the free supply of commodities. During the exploitation of mineral deposits, some parts of their resources become sterilized as inaccessible because of natural hazards or unfavorable economic conditions. Not mining land use and the social opposition against mining is the purpose of sterilization of considerable demonstrated mineral resources of deposits not yet engaged in exploitation. The native sulfur deposits in Poland are a good example of such “not mining” sterilization, which makes a considerable part of known resources inaccessible. On the northern border of the Carpathian Foredeep within the Miocene gypsum formation, the systematic exploration had demonstrated about 1 billion tons of sulfur resources located in the deposits of varied dimensions. The sulfur opencast mining and underground melting (the modified Frasch method) flourished from 1958 up to 1993. The increasing sulfur supply, recoverable from hydrocarbons, caused the closing down of sulfur mines, leaving a place with considerable untouched resources. About 67% of sulfur resources left by closed mines and of other explored but not exploited deposits are sterilized by the advancement of settlements, industrial plants, road construction, and by social opposition against mining.

Keywords: resources; sterilization; self-guarding; sulfur deposits; Poland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/10/4/30/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/10/4/30/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jresou:v:10:y:2021:i:4:p:30-:d:527377

Access Statistics for this article

Resources is currently edited by Ms. Donchian Ma

More articles in Resources from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().