The Ode­sa region, locat­ed in the south-west of Ukraine, is char­ac­ter­ized not only by its nat­ur­al beau­ty and cul­tur­al her­itage but also by sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic poten­tial in the form of diverse min­er­al resources found in its sub­sur­face. Below we con­sid­er in detail the main cat­e­gories of min­er­al resources extract­ed in the Ode­sa region.

The min­er­al resources are asso­ci­at­ed with pre-Ceno­zoic, pre-Qua­ter­nary for­ma­tions and Qua­ter­nary deposits.

• fuel resources;
• metal­lic resources;
• non-metal­lic resources (min­ing-chem­i­cal raw mate­ri­als and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als).

Lignite (brown coal)

In the Ode­sa region, deposits of lig­nite (brown coal) are iden­ti­fied and are asso­ci­at­ed with Miocene deposits of liman and ter­rige­nous-clay stra­ta. These coal-bear­ing deposits are locat­ed in coastal, desali­nat­ed, swampy lagoons. One of the lig­nite occur­rences is locat­ed near the vil­lage of Vladichen, Bolhrad dis­trict, where the coal seam has an aver­age thick­ness of 1.1 m and lies at a depth of 30 m. Coal qual­i­ty is char­ac­ter­ized as fol­lows: mois­ture — 12.3%, ash con­tent — 26.6%, volatile mat­ter yield — 56.8%, total sul­fur — 6.23%.

The Vasylivske occur­rence cov­ers an area of about 120 km² and lies at depths from 4 to 52.7 m. The max­i­mum coal accu­mu­la­tion is con­fined to the south­west­ern part of the deposit. Coal qual­i­ty is char­ac­ter­ized by ash con­tent of 25–32%, total sul­fur con­tent of 7–8%, car­bon con­tent of 45%, and hydro­gen con­tent of 5.8%.

The Karakut occur­rence also con­tains lig­nite and is asso­ci­at­ed with ter­rige­nous-clay Miocene stra­ta. Coal qual­i­ty is char­ac­ter­ized by: mois­ture 8.42%, ash con­tent 30.1%, volatile mat­ter yield 42.9%, and total sul­fur 7.79%. This coal may be used as ener­gy fuel and chem­i­cal raw mate­r­i­al, but its lim­it­ed thick­ness restricts indus­tri­al exploita­tion.

The exter­nal appear­ance of lig­nite from dif­fer­ent deposits may be sim­i­lar, but they dif­fer in facies ori­gin and for­ma­tion con­di­tions. Occur­rences of dif­fer­ent ages show dif­fer­ences in qual­i­ty and geo­chem­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics. Sar­ma­t­ian lig­nite has an increased con­tent of cer­tain ele­ments such as zir­co­ni­um, scan­di­um, ger­ma­ni­um, etc., while Novorossiysk-type coal dif­fers in oth­er chem­i­cal com­po­nents. The prospects for dis­cov­er­ing large lig­nite deposits in this area are con­sid­ered low.

Manganese and iron

In Kiliya, locat­ed in the south­ern part of the Ode­sa region, deposits of man­ganese and iron have been iden­ti­fied. How­ev­er, these deposits are rel­a­tive­ly small, which makes their extrac­tion and devel­op­ment eco­nom­i­cal­ly unprof­itable.

Zinc

In the area of the vil­lage of Lymanske (Ode­sa region), zinc min­er­al­iza­tion was iden­ti­fied dur­ing the study of Car­bonif­er­ous deposits of the Pre-Dobru­ja region and their poten­tial zinc con­tent. The zinc occur­rence is found in dolomi­tized mar­bles and is con­cen­trat­ed in zones with numer­ous vein sys­tems filled with late ankerite and low-tem­per­a­ture quartz. Dis­sem­i­nat­ed min­er­al­iza­tion and vein­lets con­tain pyrite, gale­na, spha­lerite, and chal­copy­rite, in some cas­es form­ing 10–20% of the rock vol­ume. Pyrite and spha­lerite dom­i­nate, occur­ring at about 7–8%, while gale­na and chal­copy­rite are present in small­er amounts.

Barite

In a restored quar­ry near the vil­lage of Orliv­ka, a bar­i­ti­za­tion zone was iden­ti­fied with barite vein­lets reach­ing a total thick­ness of about 1 m. This zone con­sists of close­ly spaced quartz–barite veins rang­ing from 1 to 2 m in thick­ness. These veins are con­fined to the endo­con­tact zone of ker­san­tite dykes. They are com­posed of light-gray quartz and nee­dle-shaped barite crys­tals form­ing radi­at­ing fibrous struc­tures. Quartz–barite veins formed dur­ing the late stage of Her­cyn­ian tec­to­ge­n­e­sis and played a key role in con­trol­ling barite min­er­al­iza­tion. Chem­i­cal analy­sis indi­cates barite con­tent of about 40%.

Shales

The shale deposit known as the “Orlivske” deposit has already been exhaust­ed. It is locat­ed about 1.3 km west of the vil­lage of Orliv­ka, near the con­flu­ence of the Kami­ana Riv­er. The extract­ed raw mate­r­i­al con­sist­ed of Orliv­ka shales belong­ing to Devon­ian deposits. These shales are com­posed of thin and very thin interbed­ded car­bon­ate-quartz and quartz lay­ers arranged rhyth­mi­cal­ly. The rocks have under­gone weath­er­ing and are light green or gray in col­or, some­times with a red­dish-brown tint. In the past, these shales were extract­ed for use as crushed stone for road con­struc­tion.

Limestone

The Vino­gradi­vske lime­stone deposit is locat­ed 2 km north of Vino­gradi­v­ka vil­lage on the slope of the Burlacheni gul­ly. This deposit is com­posed of lime­stones and grav­elites belong­ing to Miocene terrigenous–clayey deposits. The lime­stones are light gray or brown­ish-gray in col­or and have often under­gone recrys­tal­liza­tion. Their thick­ness varies from 4.0 to 9.5 m. The grav­elites are also light gray and con­sist of peb­bles and grav­el of sed­i­men­ta­ry rocks, with a thick­ness rang­ing up to 2.3 m. Above them lie over­bur­den deposits such as sandy loams, loams, and sands with an aver­age thick­ness of 6.1 m. The lime­stones and grav­elites are used for crushed stone pro­duc­tion required for con­struc­tion and road main­te­nance and are cur­rent­ly being exploit­ed.

Construction sand

Sands are found in var­i­ous parts of Neo­gene and Qua­ter­nary deposits with­in the region, but the most impor­tant are those asso­ci­at­ed with chan­nel facies of a delta­ic plain of Late Pleistocene–Early Pleis­tocene age. The Dolynske sand deposit is locat­ed about 1 km west of Dolynske vil­lage. The sands occur on an uneven sur­face of Kim­mer­ian-age clays and are light gray to yel­low­ish-gray in col­or. They are het­ero­ge­neous and con­sist main­ly of quartz and quartz–feldspar mate­r­i­al with admix­tures of grav­el and peb­bles. Only some lay­ers are uni­form­ly grained. The aver­age thick­ness of the sand deposits is 14.3 m, includ­ing 11.6 m of dry sands and 2.7 m of water-sat­u­rat­ed sands. Over­ly­ing loams may reach up to 17.8 m in thick­ness. Due to the low qual­i­ty of the sands and com­plex min­ing and geo­log­i­cal con­di­tions, the Dolynske deposit is not con­sid­ered suit­able for exploita­tion.

Loam

The region con­tains a large quan­ti­ty of loams that meet qual­i­ty require­ments for con­struc­tion pur­pos­es. Loams are gen­er­al­ly eas­i­ly acces­si­ble, as they occur near the sur­face. They can be used for the pro­duc­tion of bricks and roof­ing tiles. In many cas­es, loams belong to the montmorillonite–mica group with a low quartz con­tent. Their chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion is rel­a­tive­ly stan­dard­ized, and they are clas­si­fied into dif­fer­ent raw mate­r­i­al groups depend­ing on their min­er­alog­i­cal and phys­i­cal prop­er­ties. They typ­i­cal­ly exhib­it medi­um plas­tic­i­ty and good fusibil­i­ty. How­ev­er, in some deposits the loams are of low qual­i­ty, and their extrac­tion is not always eco­nom­i­cal­ly jus­ti­fied. Some deposits are active­ly exploit­ed, while oth­ers remain unde­vel­oped due to poor raw mate­r­i­al qual­i­ty.

Прісні води

Locat­ed in the south­west­ern part of the Black Sea Arte­sian Basin, the Katlabukh–Kagul inter­fluve area is char­ac­ter­ized by com­plex hydro­ge­o­log­i­cal con­di­tions and the pres­ence of var­i­ous types of ground­wa­ter, includ­ing min­er­al waters of dif­fer­ent ori­gins and chem­i­cal com­po­si­tions. This ter­ri­to­ry is marked by a short­age of ground­wa­ter suit­able for drink­ing and domes­tic water sup­ply, espe­cial­ly in the north­ern part (Bolhrad dis­trict). In con­trast, the south­ern part (Izmail and Reni dis­tricts) has bet­ter prospects for water resource pro­vi­sion. Fresh­wa­ter deposits have been explored, and their reserves have been eval­u­at­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the area between Reni and Izmail. The Mid­dle Sar­ma­t­ian aquifer is the main source of drink­ing water for the city of Izmail and the sur­round­ing region of Ode­sa Oblast. This deposit is cur­rent­ly being exploit­ed and meets applic­a­ble qual­i­ty stan­dards.

Ode­sa region also pos­sess­es sig­nif­i­cant nat­ur­al resources in the form of loams, which are valu­able in the con­struc­tion indus­try. Geo­log­i­cal analy­sis of deposits shows that these loams meet qual­i­ty require­ments for build­ing mate­ri­als pro­duc­tion. It is impor­tant to con­sid­er their diverse chem­i­cal and phys­i­cal com­po­si­tion to ensure effi­cient uti­liza­tion and the pro­duc­tion of high-qual­i­ty con­struc­tion mate­ri­als.

On the oth­er hand, hydro­ge­o­log­i­cal data indi­cate com­plex ground­wa­ter con­di­tions in the region and a var­ied dis­tri­b­u­tion of aquifers. Some areas face a short­age of suit­able ground­wa­ter for domes­tic and drink­ing water sup­ply, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the north­ern part of the region, while oth­er areas—especially in the south—are bet­ter sup­plied with water resources.