Myko­laiv region is a fair­ly large min­ing region in south­ern Ukraine. The area con­tains major deposits of con­struc­tion mate­ri­als that sup­ply the south­ern regions of the coun­try with fac­ing stone, rub­ble stone, and crushed stone extract­ed from gran­i­toids. Neo­gene car­bon­ate rocks are mined as raw mate­ri­als for lime pro­duc­tion. The allu­vial deposits of the South­ern Buh Riv­er are devel­oped for con­struc­tion sands, while Qua­ter­nary loams are used in brick and tile man­u­fac­tur­ing.

Brown coal

A brown coal deposit asso­ci­at­ed with the Buchak Series is locat­ed with­in Myko­laiv region of Ukraine. The Yelanets–Mykhailivske deposit is sit­u­at­ed near the urban-type set­tle­ment of Yelan­ets. The coal seam occurs at var­i­ous depths, and its qual­i­ty varies, with ash con­tent rang­ing from 26.4% to 46.8%. The coal-bear­ing deposits also con­tain ura­ni­um ores with admix­tures of rare met­als such as molyb­de­num and tan­ta­lum. Ger­ma­ni­um is con­sis­tent­ly present in the brown coal, often in anom­alous­ly high con­cen­tra­tions, mak­ing the deposit an impor­tant tar­get for fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. It is rec­om­mend­ed to car­ry out addi­tion­al stud­ies aimed at eval­u­at­ing coal qual­i­ty and inves­ti­gat­ing asso­ci­at­ed ele­ments with­in this region.

Peat

Near the vil­lage of Varyushyne, a peat lay­er approx­i­mate­ly 0.5 m thick occurs at a depth of about 1 m with­in the flood­plain deposits of the South­ern Buh Riv­er. The peat is dark brown in col­or and char­ac­ter­ized by a loose struc­ture. More detailed inves­ti­ga­tions may reveal addi­tion­al prop­er­ties of the peat and its poten­tial appli­ca­tions in var­i­ous indus­tries.

Titanium-zirconium ores

Sig­nif­i­cant con­cen­tra­tions of tita­ni­um-zir­co­ni­um ores have been iden­ti­fied in the coastal-marine sands of Neo­gene age, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in the Pryshchep­ivske, Druzhe­li­u­bivske, and Makarivske occur­rences. Addi­tion­al­ly, two more ilmenite occur­rences — Novo­volodymyrivske and Druzhe­li­u­bivske — have been dis­cov­ered with­in clayey-sandy deposits of the Maeot­ian region­al stage. Sim­i­lar deposits also con­tain oth­er valu­able min­er­als, includ­ing zir­con. These occur­rences dif­fer in the depth and thick­ness of ilmenite-bear­ing sands. Stud­ies have shown that the ilmenite con­tent in the sands may vary, while ore qual­i­ty is deter­mined by the ratio of fer­ric and fer­rous iron. Detailed inves­ti­ga­tions have been con­duct­ed with­in the Pryshchep­iv­ka group of occur­rences, locat­ed near the vil­lage of Pryshchep­iv­ka, where Helix-bear­ing sands and coarse-grained allu­vial deposits were iden­ti­fied. Oth­er occur­rences, includ­ing Druzhe­li­u­bivske, Novo­volodymyrivske, and Makarivske, also con­tain con­sid­er­able ilmenite reserves; how­ev­er, com­pre­hen­sive assess­ments of their eco­nom­ic poten­tial have not yet been car­ried out.

Molybdenite

The molyb­de­num ore for­ma­tion locat­ed with­in the Voz­ne­sen­sk fault zone of the crys­talline base­ment includes sev­er­al molyb­den­ite occur­rences, name­ly Bulat­se­livske, Piv­den­noolek­san­drivske, Zakhid­noolek­san­drivske, and Pry­buzke. Molyb­den­ite has been iden­ti­fied in var­i­ous rock types such as peg­matites, ender­bites, and gran­ites, and is asso­ci­at­ed with min­er­als includ­ing urani­nite, pyrite, and chal­copy­rite. The min­er­al­iza­tion is local in char­ac­ter and relat­ed to tec­ton­ic dis­tur­bances and meta­so­mat­ic alter­ation of rocks. The molyb­de­num con­tent ranges from 0.01% to 3.5%.

Rare earth metals

Rare earth met­als are wide­ly dis­trib­uted through­out the region and are asso­ci­at­ed with peg­matite and meta­so­matite bod­ies occur­ring with­in pyrox­ene-bear­ing gran­ites. They can be divid­ed into ceri­um and yttri­um sub­groups, with mon­azite and xeno­time serv­ing as the prin­ci­pal min­er­als, respec­tive­ly. The deposits are main­ly local­ized with­in the Kora­bel­na ore sub­zone, includ­ing the Bulat­se­livske ore field and sev­er­al oth­er ore occur­rences. One of the deposits, Ostapivske, is char­ac­ter­ized by high con­cen­tra­tions of xeno­time and mon­azite with­in zoned peg­matites formed as a result of meta­so­mat­ic process­es. The con­tent of rare earth ele­ments with­in ore bod­ies varies sig­nif­i­cant­ly, but in gen­er­al, the ores are dis­tin­guished by ele­vat­ed yttri­um and ytter­bium con­cen­tra­tions in xeno­time, as well as high ceri­um con­tent in mon­azite.

Meta­so­matites formed dur­ing two stages: first through the replace­ment of oligo­clase by biotite, and lat­er through the replace­ment of biotite by micro­cline. Rare earth occur­rences such as Pryus­tove, Kryk­lyvske, Bulat­se­livske, Vasylivske, and Rozmerytske are asso­ci­at­ed with peg­matites and meta­so­mat­ic alter­ation. Ore bod­ies con­tain xeno­time, mon­azite, and apatite; how­ev­er, their size and rare earth con­tent are rel­a­tive­ly small. Occur­rences out­side the Bulat­se­livske ore field, includ­ing Ser­hi­ivske, Semenivske, and Mari­ivske, are also asso­ci­at­ed with peg­matites and are char­ac­ter­ized by low con­cen­tra­tions of rare earth ele­ments.

Gold and silver

The Aktivske ore field, which belongs to the Arbuzyn–Shcherbanivka ore zone in Myko­laiv region, rep­re­sents the only known gold and sil­ver occur­rence in the region. It is locat­ed in the east­ern part of a mas­sif of por­phy­rob­las­tic gran­ites altered by meta­so­mat­ic process­es and exposed on the right slope of the Mertvovod Riv­er val­ley. Gold occurs in sim­ple mor­pho­log­i­cal forms, includ­ing octa­he­dral crys­tals, and dis­plays sig­nif­i­cant vari­a­tion in fine­ness. Ore for­ma­tion took place in two stages — a high-tem­per­a­ture stage and a low-tem­per­a­ture stage — while the min­er­al­iza­tion itself is con­sid­ered “blind” (hid­den beneath the sur­face). Sil­ver min­er­al­iza­tion is also present with­in the meta­so­mat­i­cal­ly altered gran­ites of the ore occur­rence.

Uranium

Myko­laiv region belongs to the Kirovohrad ura­ni­um ore region. It is locat­ed in the south­west­ern part of this region and includes var­i­ous ura­ni­um deposits and ore occur­rences. In par­tic­u­lar, the Piv­denne deposit is char­ac­ter­ized by a meta­so­mat­ic type of ura­ni­um min­er­al­iza­tion asso­ci­at­ed with peg­matites and gran­ites with­in the Pre­cam­bri­an base­ment. Ura­ni­um anom­alies are observed in pale­o­val­leys con­tain­ing Mid­dle Eocene and Apt­ian lay­er. The dis­tri­b­u­tion of var­i­ous ura­ni­um-bear­ing objects is relat­ed to two met­al­lo­genic epochs — the Meso­zoic and the Ceno­zoic.

The Sadove deposit is locat­ed in the upper reach­es of the Arbuzyn­ka Riv­er, south­east of the vil­lage of Sadove, and is asso­ci­at­ed with the left trib­u­tary of the Arbuzyn depres­sion. The ter­ri­to­ry con­sists of three sec­tions: East Sadove, Sadove-Kos­tiantyniv­ka, Novomykhailiv­ka. Ura­ni­um min­er­al­iza­tion occurs in the form of wind­ing bands along the mar­gins of the pale­o­val­ley and is asso­ci­at­ed with ore-con­trol­ling soil-lay­er oxi­da­tion zona­tion. Ura­ni­um deposits occur with­in riv­er sed­i­ment sequences, while the thick­est and rich­est ore bod­ies are con­cen­trat­ed in the low­er and mid­dle parts of the sec­tion. Ore-bear­ing stra­ta include: polymic­tic sands of var­i­ous grain sizes, car­bona­ceous clays, brown coal, car­bona­ceous sands. The deposit has been explored but is cur­rent­ly not under exploita­tion. In addi­tion, oth­er ura­ni­um occur­rences are known in the region, includ­ing Tash­lytske, Vysoko­hirske, Kos­tiantynivske, Aktivske, Yelan­etske, Shcherban­ivske, Novood­eske, Novosh­mid­tivske and Vese­lynivske.

Ceramic raw materials

Peg­matites, peg­ma­toid and aplite-peg­ma­toid gran­ites, as well as leu­co­crat­ic medi­um- and coarse-grained gran­ites and syen­ites of the Kirovohrad com­plex, are wide­ly dis­trib­uted through­out Myko­laiv region. These rocks may serve as a source of feldspar raw mate­ri­als for the ceram­ic and glass indus­tries. Par­tic­u­lar­ly valu­able are undif­fer­en­ti­at­ed and large-block peg­matites char­ac­ter­ized by a high con­tent of potas­si­um feldspar and a low con­cen­tra­tion of col­ored min­er­als. Geo­log­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tions have iden­ti­fied nine occur­rences of ceram­ic peg­matites locat­ed with­in three major ore fields: Kora­bel­no-Bak­sha­lynske, Bratske, Yelan­etske.

Kaolin

Dur­ing geo­log­i­cal explo­ration works in Myko­laiv region, kaolins with­in the weath­er­ing crust of gran­i­toids in fault zones were inves­ti­gat­ed, lead­ing to the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of sev­er­al promis­ing kaolin-bear­ing areas. The most promised are the Ostapivske, North Olek­san­drivske, Aktivske, Petropavlivske and Kryvo­pus­toshske man­i­fes­ta­tions. Kaolins from these areas are enriched, high-qual­i­ty, and meet the require­ments of var­i­ous indus­tri­al sec­tors.

Sec­ondary kaolins occur­ring with­in Mid­dle Eocene and Apt­ian pale­o­val­ley deposits are found at depths rang­ing from 4.5 to 64.0 m. They have a high con­tent of clay frac­tion (80–90%) and a thick­ness that usu­al­ly does not exceed 5 m. Enriched kaolin is char­ac­ter­ized by medi­um and low plas­tic­i­ty, refrac­tori­ness 1750–1770 °C and low mechan­i­cal strength. Linen ranges from 44 to 77%. Due to the high con­tent of col­or­ing oxides, sec­ondary kaolins show lim­it­ed suit­abil­i­ty as ceram­ic raw mate­ri­als. How­ev­er, they pos­sess broad poten­tial for the pro­duc­tion of refrac­to­ry mate­ri­als. The fol­low­ing occur­rences are con­sid­ered promis­ing for fur­ther study: Soko­livske, Petropavlivske, Buzke, Kamyshu­vatske.

Diamonds

Dia­mond grains have been iden­ti­fied in allu­vial sands of the South­ern Bug Riv­er at four loca­tions near the vil­lages of Pry­buzhzhia, Rako­va, Novohry­horiv­ka, and Bilousiv­ka. The grain size ranges from 0.5 to 1 mm. In addi­tion, a dia­mond was found in one sam­pling point of the Buchak For­ma­tion, in a 40 kg sam­ple in the area of the vil­lage of Trykraty.

Construction stone

Sev­en­teen deposits of crys­talline rocks have been iden­ti­fied in Myko­laiv region, includ­ing gran­ites, gneiss­es, migmatites, and charnock­ites, with esti­mat­ed bal­ance reserves. These mate­ri­als, due to their high strength, low water absorp­tion, and frost resis­tance, are wide­ly used in con­struc­tion for con­crete pro­duc­tion, road mate­ri­als, and as aggre­gates. Deposits are being exploit­ed by open-pit min­ing oper­a­tions oper­at­ed by var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions. The most con­tin­u­ous­ly active quar­ries include: Kos­tiantynivske, Olek­san­drivske, Trykratske, Aktivske, Myky­tivske, Pry­buzke. The poten­tial for dis­cov­er­ing and explor­ing new deposits in the north­ern part of the region is con­sid­ered vir­tu­al­ly unlim­it­ed.

Decorative facing stone

Myko­laiv region has sig­nif­i­cant reserves of fac­ing stone, main­ly extract­ed from gray and pink-gray por­phy­rob­las­tic gran­ites of the Voz­ne­sen­sk mas­sif. Two active deposits—Trykratske and Novoselivske—are known for extrac­tion of fac­ing stone. In addi­tion, coarse-grained gray gran­ites are mined at the Kos­tiantynivske deposit, while the Pivnichne deposit con­tains ender­bites and vin­nyt­sites. Pre­lim­i­nary geo­log­i­cal explo­ration has been car­ried out at the Kryvo­pus­toshske deposit of red and pink-red gran­ites.

Opal–cristobalite raw materials

Opo­ka (siliceous rock) is wide­ly dis­trib­uted in the south­ern part of Myko­laiv region. Indus­tri­al deposits belong to the Kyiv For­ma­tion of the Mid­dle Eocene and have a thick­ness of 8–11 m. They are used as a sawn wall stone and a hydraulic addi­tive in cement pro­duc­tion. Waste from cut­ting is used for man­u­fac­tur­ing sil­i­cate blocks and bricks. The mate­r­i­al can also serve as a light­weight aggre­gate in con­crete and for the pro­duc­tion of ther­mo­lite and arti­fi­cial wol­las­tonite. Two opo­ka deposits—Mykhailivske and Pokrovske—have been explored and have bal­ance reserves. In addi­tion, two occurrences—Novomykolaivske and Kryvorizke—are known. Oth­er man­i­fes­ta­tions are found near the vil­lages of Taboriv­ka, Bilousiv­ka, and Troitske.

Construction sands

Con­struc­tion sands in the described area are main­ly asso­ci­at­ed with allu­vial deposits of the flood­plain ter­races of the South­ern Bug Riv­er. They are also present in nearshore marine Miocene deposits, as well as in con­ti­nen­tal Pliocene and Eocene chan­nel sed­i­ments. Allu­vial sands are active­ly mined south of the vil­lage of Olek­san­driv­ka. The Olek­san­driv­ka deposit group is locat­ed on the first and sec­ond flood­plain ter­races of the South­ern Bug Riv­er, extend­ing from Olek­san­driv­ka to Nati­a­gai­iv­ka. Some areas have already been devel­oped, and sev­er­al occur­rences remain. The sands form two hori­zons sep­a­rat­ed by sandy clay or silt. They are suit­able for con­crete and mor­tar pro­duc­tion. In some occur­rences, bal­ance reserves have been estab­lished, and small pits oper­at­ed by local res­i­dents are also present. In the area of the vil­lages Rako­va, Doroshiv­ka, and oth­ers, 12 sand occur­rences have been iden­ti­fied, with the Varyushynske occur­rence con­sid­ered the most promis­ing.

Carbonate rocks

Deposits of the Pon­tian and Sar­ma­t­ian Neo­gene for­ma­tions con­tain lime­stones that are extract­ed by quar­ry­ing on the slopes of riv­er val­leys and ravines. These lime­stones are used for the man­u­fac­ture of sawn stone, rub­ble and crushed stone, as well as in road con­struc­tion and the pro­duc­tion of lime and cement. The thick­ness of exploit­ed lime­stone lay­ers is usu­al­ly 2–3 m, while over­bur­den thick­ness may reach up to 9.5 m. Oolitic and shell lime­stones are used as sawn con­struc­tion stone, while platy and var­i­ous­ly recrys­tal­lized lime­stones are used as rub­ble, crushed stone, and raw mate­r­i­al for lime and cement pro­duc­tion. Sev­er­al lime­stone deposits and occur­rences have been iden­ti­fied in the region, includ­ing six deposits with bal­ance reserves, such as Mykhailivske, Voz­ne­senske, Pry­buzke, Bilousivske, Pokrovske, Boho­darivske. In addi­tion, there are eight deposits with off-bal­ance reserves and four pre­lim­i­nar­i­ly eval­u­at­ed occur­rences.

Expanded clay raw materials

Clays of the Kyiv For­ma­tion (Pale­o­gene) and clay–sand lay­ers of the Miocene are used for the pro­duc­tion of expand­ed clay grav­el and sand. In par­tic­u­lar, the Bagerivske beds con­tain wide­spread deposits of expand­ed clay clays. These light-green clays are plas­tic and con­tain montmorillonite–hydromicaceous com­po­nents, with thick­ness rang­ing from 8 to 20 m. In some cas­es, pro­duc­tive lay­ers are formed togeth­er with Sar­ma­t­ian and Pon­tian clays. For exam­ple, the Kozu­bivske occur­rence has cat­e­go­ry C reserves suit­able for expand­ed clay grav­el pro­duc­tion. A total of 16 occur­rences have been iden­ti­fied in the region for fur­ther explo­ration, with Kras­no­yarskyi and Mal­ozhenivskyi con­sid­ered the most favor­able in terms of min­ing and geo­log­i­cal con­di­tions.

Brick and roofing raw materials (loams and clays)

Myko­laiv region con­tains 13 deposits of brick-and-tile raw mate­ri­als. The main source is Pleis­tocene loams and clays, which are extract­ed for the pro­duc­tion of bricks and roof­ing tiles. Extrac­tion is car­ried out beneath the top­soil lay­er and the mate­r­i­al is used either as brick raw mate­r­i­al or in com­bi­na­tion with sand and Neo­gene clays. Quar­ries are oper­at­ed by brick fac­to­ries as well as by local res­i­dents for the pro­duc­tion of con­struc­tion mate­ri­als. The reserves of brick raw mate­ri­als cur­rent­ly exploit­ed are most­ly locat­ed under arable land, which lim­its expan­sion poten­tial onto non-arable areas due to the low qual­i­ty of loams and their small thick­ness.

Mineral and radon waters

There are three min­er­al water deposits of min­er­al waters in the Myko­laiv region: Voz­ne­senske and Veselin­ivske for med­i­c­i­nal and table use and Myko­laivske for radon waters. The Voz­ne­senske spring water has a hydrocarbonate–sulfate–chloride–sodium com­po­si­tion with min­er­al­iza­tion of 1.62–1.71 g/dm³. Its oper­a­tional reserves are esti­mat­ed at 18 m³/day. The Vese­lynivske deposit is also intend­ed for med­i­c­i­nal-table use, with a sulfate–chloride–hydrocarbonate sodi­um com­po­si­tion and min­er­al­iza­tion of 1.30–1.36 g/dm³. Its oper­a­tional reserves are esti­mat­ed at 16 m³/day. The Myko­laivske radon water deposit occurs in pres­sur­ized radioac­tive frac­tures with a flow rate of up to 1.0 L/s. The chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion includes chloride–sulfate–sodium com­po­nents with min­er­al­iza­tion of 1.6–8.7 g/dm³, and radioac­tiv­i­ty asso­ci­at­ed with ura­ni­um, radi­um, and radon.

Myko­laiv region rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant min­ing region with a diverse range of min­er­al resources. The vari­ety of deposits—construction mate­ri­als, ura­ni­um, metal­lic min­er­als, and rare metals—demonstrates the strong indus­tri­al and eco­nom­ic poten­tial of the region.