Con­struc­tion Sands in Kyiv Oblast

Kyiv Oblast, locat­ed in the cen­tral part of Ukraine, is renowned for its nat­ur­al resources. One of the most impor­tant resources is con­struc­tion sand, which is used in build­ing con­struc­tion, infra­struc­ture projects, and oth­er indus­tries. Kyiv Oblast has a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of deposits of con­struc­tion sand scat­tered through­out its ter­ri­to­ry. One of the most well-known deposits is locat­ed in the vicin­i­ty of Kyiv and Novoukrain­ka. Oth­er sig­nif­i­cant deposits can be found near Vysh­horod, Fas­tiv, Brovary, and oth­er cities and vil­lages in the region.

The con­struc­tion sand deposits in Kyiv Oblast have sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic poten­tial. Their extrac­tion and fur­ther pro­cess­ing cre­ate jobs and con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of the con­struc­tion indus­try in the region. Con­struc­tion sand from the deposits in Kyiv Oblast is wide­ly used in the con­struc­tion sec­tor for var­i­ous pur­pos­es. It is an essen­tial com­po­nent in the pro­duc­tion of con­crete, bricks, plas­ter, and oth­er build­ing mate­ri­als. It is also used for cre­at­ing foun­da­tions, road sur­faces, trench back­fill, and oth­er con­struc­tion works.

Con­struc­tion sand from the deposits in Kyiv Oblast has high qual­i­ty and meets the stan­dards of the con­struc­tion indus­try, specif­i­cal­ly DSTU B V.2 7–32–95. It pos­sess­es the nec­es­sary phys­i­cal and mechan­i­cal prop­er­ties as well as chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion, mak­ing it an ide­al mate­r­i­al for con­struc­tion pur­pos­es. The eval­u­a­tion of sand for con­crete pro­duc­tion involves sev­er­al key fac­tors. These include the grain com­po­si­tion of the sand, the pres­ence of harm­ful impu­ri­ties, and the con­tent of dusty and clayey par­ti­cles. Fine aggre­gate for con­crete typ­i­cal­ly uti­lizes sand with a fine­ness mod­u­lus rang­ing from 1.5 to 2.5. Depend­ing on the intend­ed use of the con­crete, the sand may have a clay con­tent of less than 0.05 mm rang­ing from 2.0 to 3.0%, includ­ing clay lumps with­in the range of 0.25 to 0.5%. The sand may also con­tain par­ti­cles small­er than 0.16 mm up to 15.0%, and for very fine sands, up to 20%.

Among the harm­ful impu­ri­ties that may be present in con­crete sands, organ­ic residues, clayey and dusty par­ti­cles, mica, sul­fur and sul­fu­ric com­pounds, and amor­phous forms of sil­i­ca are worth not­ing. The use of sand with a fine­ness mod­u­lus of 1.0–1.5 or 3.25–4.0 requires addi­tion­al analy­sis based on tech­no­log­i­cal tests and tech­no-eco­nom­ic jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to deter­mine its suit­abil­i­ty.

The suit­abil­i­ty of sand for the pro­duc­tion of sil­i­cate con­crete, sil­i­cate bricks, and auto­claved sil­i­cate prod­ucts is eval­u­at­ed accord­ing to the require­ments of DSTU B V.2.7–80, which per­tain to grain com­po­si­tion, con­tent of free quartz (SiO2), chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion, clay par­ti­cle con­tent, as well as harm­ful and organ­ic impu­ri­ties. No spe­cif­ic require­ments are imposed on the grain com­po­si­tion of sands for the pro­duc­tion of light­weight con­crete and sand as a bind­ing com­po­nent for obtain­ing dense sil­i­cate con­crete.

Among the clas­tic rocks in the ter­ri­to­ry of Kyiv Oblast, the most valu­able for con­struc­tion pur­pos­es are Qua­ter­nary allu­vial sands. Min­i­mal strip­ping work is required for their extrac­tion as they are present direct­ly on the sur­face over sig­nif­i­cant areas. These sands con­tain 90–98% quartz and have the low­est amount of impu­ri­ties. Their thick­ness aver­ages 5–10 meters, some­times reach­ing 17–25 meters. Extrac­tion pri­mar­i­ly focus­es on coars­er-grained sands of riv­er and near-riv­er facies, with the pro­duc­tive thick­ness being con­trolled by their bound­aries.

The wide­spread use of sands in var­i­ous sec­tors of the con­struc­tion indus­try for the devel­op­ment of Kyiv city and the region has led to numer­ous geo­log­i­cal sur­veys for this valu­able min­er­al resource. The first large-scale prospect­ing and explo­ration works for the deposits of con­struc­tion sands in the Dnipro Riv­er were car­ried out from 1975 to 1977 by the Right-Bank Geo­log­i­cal Expe­di­tion upon the request of Kyivmiskbud. Twen­ty sites were inves­ti­gat­ed, includ­ing 15 locat­ed in the course of the Dnipro Riv­er. In total, over 30 deposits of con­struc­tion sands have been explored with­in the ter­ri­to­ry of Kyiv Oblast, and some of them are cur­rent­ly under devel­op­ment:

The Dnipro sand deposit is locat­ed with­in the course of the Dnipro Riv­er, from the mouth of the Desna Riv­er to the Vyshenky port. The valu­able min­er­al is mod­ern allu­vial riv­er sand, fine­ly-grained and quartz-based. It is extract­ed using hydro­me­chan­i­cal meth­ods with trans­porta­tion by barges. This sand is suit­able for all types of con­struc­tion work, and its quan­ti­ty is prac­ti­cal­ly unlim­it­ed.

The Stuh­niv sand deposit is sit­u­at­ed 7 km north of the town of Obukhiv, on the flood­plain ter­race of the Stuh­na Riv­er. The valu­able min­er­al is allu­vial quartz sand, fine-grained. Its thick­ness ranges from 9.8 to 18.0 meters. It is used for the pro­duc­tion of sil­i­cate bricks. There is a poten­tial for reserve growth through the uti­liza­tion of avail­able areas in all direc­tions.

The Zas­tuh­niv sand deposit is locat­ed 2 km south­west of the town of Vasylkiv, on the sec­ond supra-flood­plain ter­race of the Stuh­na Riv­er. The valu­able min­er­al is fine-grained allu­vial quartz sand. Its thick­ness is 8 meters. It is used for road con­struc­tion.

The Pukhiv sand deposit is sit­u­at­ed in the west­ern out­skirts of the vil­lage of Pukhiv­ka, on the flood­plain of the Desna Riv­er. The valu­able min­er­al is fine-grained allu­vial quartz sand, with water con­tent at depths rang­ing from 0.1 to 2.1 meters. The sand thick­ness reach­es up to 21.5 meters.

The Rozhiv sand deposit is locat­ed 0.3 km north­west of the vil­lage of Rozhiv­ka, on the sec­ond supra-flood­plain ter­race of the Desna Riv­er. The valu­able min­er­al is allu­vial quartz sand, fine-grained. The aver­age sand thick­ness is 28.0 meters, while the thick­ness of over­bur­den rocks is 0.1 meter.

The Horen­ka sand deposit is sit­u­at­ed near the vil­lage of Horen­ka in the val­ley of the right trib­u­tary of the Irpin Riv­er. The valu­able min­er­al is very fine-grained allu­vial quartz sand. The aver­age sand thick­ness is 5 meters, and the aver­age over­bur­den rock thick­ness is 0.2 meter.

The Novo-Ukrayinske sand deposit is locat­ed near the town of Ukrayin­ka, with­in the Kaniv Reser­voir. The valu­able min­er­al is allu­vial riv­er sand, quartz-based. The con­tent of sol­u­ble amor­phous sil­i­ca in alka­li sat­is­fies the require­ments of DSTU B V. 2.7–32-95.

The Rohnivske and Sadove deposits are sit­u­at­ed on the south­ern out­skirts of the vil­lage of Rohni, on the left bank of the Dnieper Riv­er. The valu­able min­er­al is used as a filler for con­struc­tion mix­tures and for land­scap­ing, recla­ma­tion, and plan­ning pur­pos­es.

The Hni­dynske deposit is locat­ed in the west­ern out­skirts of the vil­lage of Hni­dyn, with­in the flood­plain of the Zolochiv Riv­er.

Oth­er deposits have been explored and are includ­ed in the state bal­ance of reserves as back­up reserves. Oth­er deposits have been explored and are includ­ed in the state bal­ance of reserves as back­up reserves. These include:
Build­ing sand deposits suit­able as fillers for con­struc­tion mix­tures and con­crete: Kon­cha-Zaspynske, near the town of Kozyn, Zhovt­n­eve, on the out­skirts of the vil­lage of Zhovt­n­eve.
Build­ing sand deposits suit­able for the pro­duc­tion of sil­i­cate bricks: Kyivske, Tryp­il­skе, “Gatne,” “Ostriv Bez­i­men­nyy,” and oth­ers.
Build­ing sand deposits suit­able for road con­struc­tion: Vasilkivske, locat­ed near the vil­lage of Pohre­by, and oth­ers.

The extrac­tion process of riv­er sands is an impor­tant com­po­nent of the con­struc­tion and min­ing indus­tries. Riv­er sands, also known as flu­vial sands, are sed­i­men­ta­ry mate­ri­als formed as a result of riv­er flow and ero­sion with­in riv­er chan­nels or streams. The extrac­tion process involves the fol­low­ing stages:

1. Pri­or to com­menc­ing extrac­tion, detailed explo­ration of the riv­er sand deposit is con­duct­ed. This includes geo­log­i­cal sur­veys, mea­sure­ment of the thick­ness and dimen­sions of the sand lay­er, assess­ment of sand qual­i­ty, and oth­er inves­ti­ga­tions.
2. After explo­ration, a min­ing plan is devel­oped. It involves deter­min­ing opti­mal extrac­tion loca­tions, esti­mat­ing the sand vol­ume, out­lin­ing the tech­no­log­i­cal process­es, and man­ag­ing the extrac­tion oper­a­tions.
3. Exca­va­tion can be car­ried out using mul­ti-lay­er exca­va­tors, earth­mov­ing machin­ery, or spe­cial­ized float­ing ves­sels. The sand is col­lect­ed from the riverbed and loaded onto ded­i­cat­ed trans­port vehi­cles for fur­ther trans­porta­tion.

4. After exca­va­tion, the sand is trans­port­ed to a pro­cess­ing facil­i­ty, which can be a spe­cial­ized treat­ment plant or fac­to­ry.
5. Upon arrival at the pro­cess­ing site, the sand under­goes wash­ing and sort­ing process­es. The sand is washed and goes through a sort­ing process, where it is sep­a­rat­ed into dif­fer­ent frac­tions accord­ing to indus­try and cus­tomer require­ments.
6. After wash­ing and sort­ing, the sand is ready for trans­porta­tion to cus­tomers.

In sum­ma­ry, the con­struc­tion sand deposits in the Kyiv region are invalu­able resources with sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic and infra­struc­ture poten­tial. Prop­er man­age­ment of these deposits, ensur­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, and pre­serv­ing nat­ur­al resources are key tasks for max­i­miz­ing the ben­e­fits derived from their uti­liza­tion.

Arti­cle from the series “Use­ful Min­er­als of Kyiv Region”

REF­ER­ENCES
1. Антропогеновые отложения Украины. — К.: Наукова думка, 1986
2. Веклич М. Ф., Сиренко Я. А., Матвишина Ж. Я. и др. Палеогеография Киевского Приднепровья. — К.: Наукова думка, 1984.
3. Минерально-сырьевая база строительных материалов Украинской ССР. Киевская обл., 1989.