Building stones and other non-metallic minerals

Ukraine is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of reserves of building stones for various purposes (from monumental and facing to rubble).

Its deposits are known within the Ukrainian Crystalline Shield (magmatic and metamorphic rocks of the Archean and Proterozoic periods: granites, diorites, charnockites, gneisses, migmatites, quartzites, marbles, etc.), the Volyn-Podilsky Plate (basalts, sandstones, marbled limestones), the Black Sea Basin and the Steppe Crimea (sawdust limestones), the Carpathians (granite-gneisses, marbles, marbled limestones, andesite-basalts, tuffs), and the Mountain Crimea (marbled limestones, shell limestones).

In Ukraine, there are 246 known deposits of facing stone, over 900 (including complex accounting objects) deposits of building stone, and 199 deposits of sawn stone.

Low-melting (partially refractory) clay rocks that occur in nature in a dense, loose, and plastic state are used as a mineral for the production of bricks, tiles, and some ceramic products.

Among clay rocks, the following varieties are distinguished: clays, loams, loess, loess-like loams, mudstones, and clay shales.

Clay rocks occupy a significant share in the sediments of almost all geological groups in almost all geostructural regions of Ukraine: the Dnieper-Donetsk Depression and the Donetsk Folded Region, on the Ukrainian Crystalline Shield and its slopes, the Volyn-Podilsky Plate, in the Carpathian Folded Region, the Black Sea Depression, and the Crimean Folded System.

The State Balance of Mineral Resources of Ukraine includes 1,834 deposits (51 of which are complex). Most of the explored deposits are small.

For the production of cement, carbonate (limestone, chalk, calcareous tuff), carbonate-clay (marl, marly limestone) and clay (clay, loam, clay shales, loess and loess-like loam) rocks are used.

Rocks of sedimentary (diatomites, trepelle, opok, spongolite) and volcanic (tuffs, pumice, trass, volcanic ash) origin are used as additives.

Cement raw material deposits are located in the Dnieper-Donetsk Depression, the Donetsk Folded Region, the Black Sea Depression, the Crimean Folded Region, the Volyn-Podilsky Plate, the Lviv Depression, and the Carpathian Folded Region.

To increase the mineral raw material base of building stones and other non-metallic (brick and tile, expanded clay, cement, and other) raw materials, it is planned to conduct prospecting, exploration and evaluation, and geological exploration works in all geostructural regions of Ukraine in order to provide these minerals for our growing domestic needs and for their export.