With­in Ukraine, among all regions, Dnipropetro­vsk region stands out for its rich nat­ur­al her­itage in the form of diverse min­er­al resources. These nat­ur­al resources not only pro­vide jobs and income for the local pop­u­la­tion but also play an impor­tant role in the devel­op­ment of var­i­ous indus­tri­al sec­tors in Ukraine.

Hard coal

One of the key min­er­al resources of Dnipropetro­vsk region is coal. The region has sig­nif­i­cant reserves of brown coal and anthracite, which are an impor­tant ener­gy source for Ukraine. Coal mines pro­vide employ­ment for thou­sands of local res­i­dents and ensure a sta­ble flow of income to the region­al bud­get. In addi­tion, coal is used as a raw mate­r­i­al for the pro­duc­tion of heat and elec­tric­i­ty, which is crit­i­cal for main­tain­ing both indus­tri­al activ­i­ty and house­hold ener­gy con­sump­tion.

Coal is asso­ci­at­ed with deposits of the Low­er Car­bonif­er­ous (Car­bonif­er­ous sys­tem), which are wide­spread in the north­ern part of the region. Geo­log­i­cal­ly, this cor­re­sponds to the south­ern flank of the Novo­moskovsk and the south­west­ern part of the Pavlohrad–Petropavlivka coal-bear­ing areas.

Work­able coal seams are main­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the Sama­ra suite, up to 700 m thick. With­in the thick­est coal-bear­ing sequence (100–200 m), between Car­bonif­er­ous lime­stones, there are up to 50 coal seams with a total thick­ness of up to 20 m. How­ev­er, most seams in the Pavlohrad–Petropavlivka area are rel­a­tive­ly thin (1.4–1.5 m), while in the Novo­moskovsk and Petrykiv­ka areas medi­um-thick­ness seams pre­vail (3.4–3.7 m). The coal is pre­dom­i­nant­ly humic, with low-ash and low-sul­fur types. Thin inter­lay­ers and lens­es of sapro­pel­ic humite and sapro­pelite up to 0.1 m thick are typ­i­cal.

The aver­age com­po­si­tion of coal (in % of organ­ic mat­ter) is: vit­ri­nite 51–54%, semi­fusi­nite 2–3%, fusi­nite 21–25%, lip­ti­nite 22%. Ash fusion tem­per­a­ture ranges from 1025 to 1350°C. Coal washa­bil­i­ty in the Pavlohrad–Petropavlivka area is easy to medi­um, while in the Novo­moskovsk area it is dif­fi­cult. The degree of coal meta­mor­phism increas­es from west to east, from long-flame coal in Novo­moskovsk to tran­si­tion­al long-flame to gas coal in the west­ern part of the Pavlohrad–Petropavlivka area.

Brown coal

The area of the region includes the east­ern flank of the Verkhn­od­niprovsk coal-bear­ing dis­trict. Indus­tri­al coal occur­rence is asso­ci­at­ed with con­ti­nen­tal deposits of the Buchak series of the Eocene epoch (Pale­o­gene sys­tem of the Ceno­zoic), which fill ancient riv­er pale­o­val­leys. The Pryd­niprovs­ka (Synel­nykivs­ka), Novo-Olek­san­drivs­ka, and Voskre­senivs­ka pale­o­val­leys are known here.

With­in the largest and most coal-bear­ing Pryd­niprovs­ka pale­o­val­ley, which extends in a sub­merid­ion­al direc­tion along the Dnipro riv­er, the fol­low­ing have been explored or eval­u­at­ed: the Synel­nykivske and Per­voz­vanivske deposits, the Han­no-Trepivs­ka site, and the south­ern part of the Pryd­niprovs­ka coal-bear­ing area. Indus­tri­al coal occur­rence is asso­ci­at­ed with the upper part of the Buchak series deposits.

The lig­nite seam is char­ac­ter­ized by vari­able thick­ness from 0.2 to 15.0 m with a width of 1–5 km. The seam struc­ture is sim­ple; in some places it splits into two or three lay­ers, sep­a­rat­ed by clay, sand, and kaolin interbeds with a thick­ness of 0.5 to 7 m. The depth of occur­rence varies from 10.6 m to 132.6 m, most­ly 65–75 m. In terms of qual­i­ty, the coal belongs to tech­no­log­i­cal group “B1”. Genet­i­cal­ly, it is clas­si­fied as humites and humi­to-lip­to­bi­o­lites. Ash con­tent is 19.4%, mois­ture con­tent is 55.8%, sul­fur con­tent is 4.2%. The calorif­ic val­ue is: 6700 kcal/kg (dry mass) and 1810 kcal/kg (as received fuel).

Gold

Gold min­er­al­iza­tion is asso­ci­at­ed with com­plex syn­cli­nal struc­tures such as Verkhivt­seve, Burs­ka, Chor­tom­lyk, Sofi­iv­ka, Biloz­er­s­ka, and oth­ers, which form the Verkhivtsiv–Sura–Chortomlyk and Konka–Bilozerska met­al­lo­genic zones. These zones are char­ac­ter­ized by wide­spread con­trast­ing vol­canic for­ma­tions of var­i­ous com­po­si­tions, rang­ing from ultra­ba­sic to acidic. The rocks are strong­ly frac­tured, meta­mor­phosed, and have under­gone inten­sive meta­so­mat­ic alter­ation, includ­ing propy­l­i­ti­za­tion, listven­i­ti­za­tion, sili­ci­fi­ca­tion, bere­si­ti­za­tion, and sul­fi­da­tion.

Gold-bear­ing for­ma­tions are con­fined to altered rocks and are rep­re­sent­ed by min­er­al­ized zones, quartz and car­bon­ate veins, as well as gold occur­rences in fer­rug­i­nous quartzites. The deposits asso­ci­at­ed with them are: Ser­hi­ivske, Bal­ka Zolota, Bal­ka Shi­ro­ka, Piv­denne and sev­er­al promis­ing man­i­fes­ta­tions of gold. The Ser­hi­ivske and Bal­ka Zolota deposits are locat­ed in the south­ern part of the Sura granite–greenstone struc­ture and are con­trolled by the extru­sion of pla­gi­oli­parites. In the con­tact zones of the extru­sion, and occa­sion­al­ly with­in it, gold-bear­ing veins are con­cen­trat­ed, occur­ring sub­par­al­lel to its con­tacts. The Bal­ka Shy­ro­ka deposit is locat­ed in the east­ern part of the Chor­tom­lyk granite–greenstone struc­ture. Gold-bear­ing zones are asso­ci­at­ed with interbed­ded sequences of meta­mor­phosed vol­canic rocks of basic and acidic com­po­si­tion togeth­er with fer­rug­i­nous quartzites, which host meta­so­mat­ic alter­ations of the listvenite–beresite type. The min­er­al­ized zones form sub­ver­ti­cal, lens-shaped bod­ies.

Iron ores

Iron ore reserves in Dnipropetro­vsk region have become the basis for the devel­op­ment of the met­al­lur­gi­cal indus­try. The pro­duc­tion of pig iron and steel is a key com­po­nent of the ukrain­ian econ­o­my, and this region is one of its main “steel hubs.” Large met­al­lur­gi­cal com­plex­es use iron ore from Dnipropetro­vsk region to pro­duce high-qual­i­ty steel, which is used in con­struc­tion, the auto­mo­tive indus­try, and many oth­er sec­tors.

Iron ore deposits and occur­rences are con­cen­trat­ed with­in the Inhulets–Kryvyi Rih and Kryvyi Rih–Kremenchuk met­al­lo­genic sub­zones. In the lat­ter sub­zone, a spe­cial role is played by the Kryvyi Rih ore zone, or the Kryvyi Rih iron ore basin, where the main ore reserves are explored. Based on iron con­tent, the ores are divid­ed into two indus­tri­al-tech­no­log­i­cal types:
1. rich ores, which are used in met­al­lur­gy with­out pri­or ben­e­fi­ci­a­tion;
2. poor ores — fer­rug­i­nous quartzites that require ben­e­fi­ci­a­tion before use.

Deposits of rich ores in the Kryvyi Rih basin occur as beds, lens­es, thick lay­ered bod­ies, and columns, and are asso­ci­at­ed with fold­ed and fault­ed geo­log­i­cal struc­tures. Poor iron ores make up the major­i­ty of all deposits in the Kryvyi Rih basin and some deposits and occur­rences of the Inhulets–Kryvyi Rih met­al­lo­genic sub­zone. All of them serve as the raw mate­r­i­al base for min­ing and pro­cess­ing plants. The main indus­tri­al impor­tance belongs to unox­i­dized mag­netite and sil­i­cate-mag­netite quartzites. In addi­tion, oxi­dized fer­rug­i­nous quartzites are extract­ed as by-prod­ucts at all deposits; these are cur­rent­ly stored in waste dumps and may lat­er become a raw mate­r­i­al base for a pro­cess­ing plant for oxi­dized ores.

The lead­ing role in the local­iza­tion of all iron ore deposits is played by strati­graph­ic fac­tors. In the Kryvyi Rih–Kremenchuk met­al­lo­genic sub­zone, all iron ore deposits are con­fined to the Sak­sa­han (less often the Hdaniv­ka) suite of the Kryvyi Rih series. In the Inhulets–Kryvyi Rih sub­zone, they occur in the Artemiv­ka and Rodi­on­iv­ka suites of the Inhul–Inhulets series, while in the Verkhivtseve–Chortomlyk zone they are locat­ed in the Sura suite of the Kon­ka series. Cur­rent­ly, 30 iron ore deposits are record­ed in the region, of which 18 are under devel­op­ment.

Manganese ores

One of the largest man­ganese ore basins in the world is locat­ed in Dnipropetro­vsk region. This is the Nikopol man­ganese basin, which con­tains more than 2.1 bil­lion tons of ore. In the Nikopol deposit, a Low­er Oligocene for­ma­tion with indus­tri­al ore beds extends inter­mit­tent­ly from west to east along the south­ern slope of the Ukrain­ian Shield for almost 250 km, with a width of up to 25 km. The ore lay­ers, with a thick­ness of about 2 m, occur with­in sandy–silty–clayey sed­i­ments. Man­ganese con­cen­trate here is obtained from ores of three genet­ic types: car­bon­ate (aver­age Mn con­tent 19.8%), oxide (27.8%), and oxide–carbonate (24.4%). The main ore min­er­als include psilome­lane, brau­nite, pyro­lusite, man­gan­ite, and rhodochrosite.

Titanium–zirconium ores

With­in Dnipropetro­vsk region, the main indus­tri­al titanium–zirconium deposits include Vovchanske, Voskre­senivske, Piv­denne, Tara­sivske, and the largest in Europe — the Maly­sheve deposit, on the basis of which the Vil­no­hirsk Min­ing and Met­al­lur­gi­cal Plant oper­ates. Titanium–zirconium plac­ers range from small to very large in reserves and occur with­in fine-grained sands. They are com­posed of rel­a­tive­ly well-sort­ed sands, and the pro­duc­tive hori­zons have sig­nif­i­cant thick­ness (up to 10 m). The ore-bear­ing hori­zons are locat­ed in the upper parts of the sed­i­men­ta­ry sequence. Ore con­cen­tra­tion in the sands result­ed from rede­po­si­tion of low­er pro­duc­tive hori­zons.

The main valu­able min­er­als include ilmenite, leu­cox­ene, rutile, zir­con, stau­ro­lite, kyan­ite, and sil­li­man­ite, among oth­ers. The con­tent of valu­able min­er­als is high enough to allow effi­cient ben­e­fi­ci­a­tion and pro­duc­tion of con­cen­trates of all use­ful com­po­nents. Ore sands are well enriched with the pro­duc­tion of con­cen­trates of all use­ful min­er­als.

Garnet (Almandine)

Abra­sive raw mate­ri­als, par­tic­u­lar­ly gar­net-alman­dine, have sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ment poten­tial in the Kryvyi Rih basin. In this region, gar­net occurs with­in meta­mor­phic rocks formed as a result of geo­log­i­cal process­es typ­i­cal for the basin. Due to its high hard­ness, chem­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty, and abra­sive prop­er­ties, gar­net is used in the pro­duc­tion of abra­sive mate­ri­als for cut­ting, grind­ing, and sur­face clean­ing.

Construction materials

On the ter­ri­to­ry of the Dnipropetro­vsk region, there are 145 deposits (as of 2017) of non-metal­lic min­er­als on the bal­ance sheet, of which 63 are being devel­oped, which is 44%. The devel­op­ment of the min­er­al and raw mate­r­i­al base of build­ing mate­ri­als does not exceed 50%. Mar­ble and gran­ite, used for the con­struc­tion of build­ings, mon­u­ments and dec­o­ra­tive prod­ucts, are very com­mon. In addi­tion, dolomite from the region is used in the con­struc­tion indus­try as an impor­tant raw mate­r­i­al for the pro­duc­tion of cement and oth­er build­ing mate­ri­als.

Primary kaolin

Pri­ma­ry kaolins are a fair­ly wide­spread min­er­al resource with­in the region, and their prospects depend main­ly on ore qual­i­ty, the thick­ness of over­ly­ing rocks, and the val­ue of agri­cul­tur­al land locat­ed above them. In the region, nine deposits have been explored, and eight occur­rences have been pre­lim­i­nar­i­ly eval­u­at­ed. Cur­rent­ly, only the Hlukhovetske and Prosyanske deposits are being exploit­ed.

The pro­duc­tive stra­ta of kaolin deposits usu­al­ly have a bed-like shape with a thick­ness rang­ing from 9.0 to 25.0 m and con­sist of pri­ma­ry kaolins that are white to light gray, plas­tic (“fat”) in tex­ture, with quartz grains. The chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion of kaolin (%) is: SiO₂ — 62.67; Al₂O₃ — 25.4; Fe₂O₃ — 1.12; loss on igni­tion — 9.26. The melt­ing tem­per­a­ture of kaolin is 1810–1830°C.

An impor­tant qual­i­ty indi­ca­tor of pri­ma­ry kaolins is the con­tent of col­or­ing oxides. Gran­ite-derived kaolins of the Prosyanske deposit, orig­i­nat­ing from the Ver­shynske occur­rences, are extreme­ly pure in this regard (TiO₂ con­tent in typ­i­cal sam­ples of enriched kaolin does not exceed 0.5–0.6%, and Fe₂O₃ does not exceed 0.8%). Gneiss-derived kaolins in this region show a high­er tita­ni­um oxide con­tent (up to 1.0–1.2%). Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion is giv­en to acces­so­ry min­er­als in kaolins. For exam­ple, with­in the Prosyanske deposit, mon­azite-bear­ing kaolins can be dis­tin­guished (asso­ci­at­ed with gran­ites of the Dnipro com­plex), as well as ilmenite–magnetite or zircon–magnetite kaolins.

Talcomagnesite

The Prav­dyne deposit of tal­co­mag­ne­sites and car­bon­a­tized ser­pen­tinites is locat­ed in the Kryny­chan­skyi dis­trict of Dnipropetro­vsk region, 25 km from the city of Dnipro. The deposit is con­fined to the south­east­ern part of the same ultra­maf­ic mas­sif of the Surs­ka syn­cli­nal struc­ture. The area is char­ac­ter­ized by wide­spread tec­ton­ic faults, which deter­mine its com­plex block struc­ture. Meta­mor­phic host rocks of basic, inter­me­di­ate, and acidic com­po­si­tion are inter­lay­ered with fer­rug­i­nous carbonate–siliceous and fer­rug­i­nous siliceous schists.

The pro­duc­tive lay­er con­tain­ing tal­co-mag­ne­sites and car­bon­a­tized ser­pen­tinites occurs among meta­mor­phic rocks. It extends for about 800 m in strike and has a thick­ness rang­ing from 80 to 350 m. The tal­co-mag­ne­sites show no sharp vari­a­tions in thick­ness across the explored area. Prog­nos­tic resources down to a depth of 150 m are esti­mat­ed at about 300 mil­lion tonnes. The max­i­mum thick­ness of com­mer­cial lay­ers includ­ed in reserve cal­cu­la­tions is 6 m.

Forming sands

In Dnipropetro­vsk region, six deposits of foundry sands have been explored. They are con­fined to the Sar­ma­t­ian stage of the Polta­va for­ma­tion with­in the Dnipro riv­er pale­o­val­ley. These include the Khoroshiv­ske, Dnipropetro­vske, Sukhachivske, Taromske, Kras­noivanivske, and Maly­shevske deposits. Only the Maly­shevske deposit is cur­rent­ly being devel­oped; it is a com­plex ilmenite–rutile–zircon plac­er deposit. Extrac­tion of such sands is car­ried out exclu­sive­ly by open-pit min­ing. The extract­ed sands are used in their nat­ur­al state with­out pri­or pro­cess­ing, due to their high qual­i­ty, which ful­ly meets the require­ments of foundry pro­duc­tion.

Rubble stone

Nat­ur­al build­ing stone mate­ri­als include crys­talline igneous and meta­mor­phic rocks that are exposed along the Dnipro riv­er and its trib­u­taries: Tatar­ka, Osoko­riv­ka, and Sered­nia Ter­na. The most valu­able rocks are pla­giogran­ites, pla­giomigmatites, gran­ites, gra­n­odi­or­ites, and quartz dior­ites. These rocks are used for the pro­duc­tion of rub­ble stone and crushed stone for con­struc­tion works, as well as bal­last for rail­way and high­way infra­struc­ture. In the region, nine ful­ly explored deposits are being devel­oped: Rybalske, Chap­lynske, Lyubymivske, Staroko­datske, Nadezh­di­vske, Voloske, Osoko­rivske, Bash­machkivske, and Komyano-Zuby­lyvske. The raw mate­ri­als from these deposits meet the require­ments of cur­rent state stan­dards (DSTU) and tech­ni­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tions (TU), cor­re­spond­ing to crushed stone grades “800‑1400”. How­ev­er, they do not meet the stan­dards required for dec­o­ra­tive and fac­ing stone.

Thus, con­sid­er­ing the diverse min­er­al resources of Dnipropetro­vsk region, it is pos­si­ble to empha­size their impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to the devel­op­ment of the region and the over­all econ­o­my of Ukraine. This overview high­lights the region’s rich geo­log­i­cal poten­tial, which includes resources such as build­ing stone, gran­ite, sand, and clay. These mate­ri­als play a key role not only in con­struc­tion and indus­try but also in sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of relat­ed eco­nom­ic sec­tors.