It is dif­fi­cult to find anoth­er region in Ukraine that match­es Zhy­to­myr region in terms of the quan­ti­ty, diver­si­ty, and unique­ness of min­er­al resources. It is often referred to as the Ukrain­ian trea­sure house or “the Urals in minia­ture.” The region owes its rich­ness to its loca­tion with­in the Ukrain­ian Shield.

Accord­ing to the State Bal­ance of Min­er­al Reserves of Ukraine, more than 500 min­er­al deposits are locat­ed with­in Zhy­to­myr region, of which about 200 are cur­rent­ly being devel­oped.

The region also con­tains deposits of fuel and ener­gy raw mate­ri­als. Approx­i­mate­ly 140 peat deposits are locat­ed here, with a pre­dom­i­nant con­cen­tra­tion in the north­west­ern part of the region. In addi­tion, two lig­nite (brown coal) open pits were pre­vi­ous­ly known in the area, although they are now closed.

Ore min­er­al resources are main­ly rep­re­sent­ed by ilmenite, the main tita­ni­um ore, as well as lead, zinc, beryl­li­um, vana­di­um, molyb­de­num, zir­co­ni­um, and scan­di­um. Tita­ni­um reserves in the Zhy­to­myr region account for more than 85% of all explored tita­ni­um ore reserves in Ukraine. Tita­ni­um ore min­ing ful­ly meets Ukraine’s domes­tic needs, and a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the raw mate­r­i­al is export­ed abroad.

A num­ber of titanium–zirconium ore deposits of both mag­mat­ic and exoge­nous ori­gin are known in the Zhy­to­myr region. These deposits are part of the Volyn min­ing dis­trict. Mag­mat­ic deposits are of a com­plex nature, as they con­tain not only ilmenite but also apatite min­er­al­iza­tion, which cor­re­sponds in com­po­si­tion to flu­o­ra­p­atite. In terms of quan­ti­ty, tita­ni­um min­er­als dom­i­nate over apatite in a ratio rang­ing from 2:1 to 7:1. Among tita­ni­um min­er­als, ilmenite almost always pre­vails.

A char­ac­ter­is­tic fea­ture of ores from small intru­sions in the Zhy­to­myr region is the wide­spread pres­ence of rare met­als with­in tita­ni­um and dark-col­ored min­er­als (such as pyrox­ene and olivine). These include ele­vat­ed con­cen­tra­tions of vana­di­um and scan­di­um as iso­mor­phic impu­ri­ties, as well as nio­bi­um, tan­ta­lum, zir­co­ni­um, hafni­um, and rare-earth ele­ments such as yttri­um and ceri­um.

Plat­inum group met­als have been iden­ti­fied in the rocks of the Pru­tiv­ka, Buky, and Korosten com­plex­es. The main prospects for dis­cov­er­ing indus­tri­al deposits are asso­ci­at­ed with lay­ered bod­ies of basic–ultrabasic rocks that show a clear copper–nickel spe­cial­iza­tion. Poten­tial plat­inum-bear­ing for­ma­tions in the stud­ied area also include car­bona­ceous rocks of the Vasyliv­ka suite, greisen bod­ies, and alka­line meta­so­matites with­in tectono-meta­so­mat­ic zones.

Tung­sten min­er­al­iza­tion is relat­ed to meta­so­mat­ic skarn for­ma­tions asso­ci­at­ed with major tec­ton­ic zones, pri­mar­i­ly the Krasnohirsk–Zhytomyr zone. Despite the rel­a­tive­ly small thick­ness of inter­vals with ele­vat­ed met­al con­tent and the often uniden­ti­fied car­ri­er min­er­al, the zone has sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial for dis­cov­er­ing more sub­stan­tial tung­sten accu­mu­la­tions. Fur­ther study is required for the south­ern exo­con­tact area of the Korosten plu­ton, where high tung­sten con­tents have been record­ed near the vil­lage of Osnyky, asso­ci­at­ed with horn­fels­ing process­es, as well as for the Lis­nyi occur­rence, char­ac­ter­ized by ele­vat­ed met­al con­tent linked to a car­bide com­pound with no known ana­logues in Ukraine.

Zhy­to­myr region has a vast min­er­al resource base of non-metal­lic raw mate­ri­als, among which dec­o­ra­tive and fac­ing stone is espe­cial­ly notable (gran­ites, labradorites, gab­bro, and recrys­tal­lized lime­stones) with a wide vari­ety of col­ors. Around 70 deposits of fac­ing stone have been explored in the region, about 40 are cur­rent­ly being devel­oped, and pro­duc­tion accounts for 60% of Ukraine’s total out­put of this raw mate­r­i­al. The qual­i­ty of the stone is demon­strat­ed by the fact that Lyznykiv­ka gran­ite was used for the stairs and square in front of the Verk­hov­na Rada of Ukraine, while Korosten gran­ite was used for the tiles lin­ing the Khreshchatyk metro sta­tion.

The region belongs to the Bur­tyn graphite-bear­ing area, where numer­ous graphite occur­rences are known, asso­ci­at­ed with meta­mor­phic graphite ore for­ma­tions. These occur­rences are spa­tial­ly linked to migmatites of the Shereme­tiv­ka com­plex and gneiss­es of the Teteriv series. The largest pre­dict­ed resources are asso­ci­at­ed with the Tenkiv and Shere­lia­tiv occur­rences.

In addi­tion, Zhy­to­myr region hosts numer­ous deposits of kaolin, quartz sands, build­ing stone, refrac­to­ry clays, and oth­er raw mate­ri­als.

No region of Ukraine can boast such a col­lec­tion of gem­stones as the Zhy­to­myr region. This includes not only amber, which occurs across about one-third of the region’s ter­ri­to­ry. The pock­et peg­matites of the unique Volyn deposit con­tain sev­er­al vari­eties of quartz (rock crys­tal, cit­rine, and mori­on), beryls (main­ly yel­low heliodor), and topaz of var­i­ous col­ors — col­or­less, blue, wine-col­ored, and mul­ti­col­ored (poly­chrome).

Dur­ing the Sovi­et peri­od, the deposit was pri­mar­i­ly mined for piezo­elec­tric quartz — high-qual­i­ty, defect-free quartz con­sid­ered a strate­gic raw mate­r­i­al, as it was used in mil­i­tary tech­nolo­gies (such as hydroa­coustic sys­tems). Beryl and topaz crys­tals were often found in the min­ing waste dumps. Today, syn­thet­ic crys­tals are used in tech­nol­o­gy, while the deposit is main­ly exploit­ed for gem­stone raw mate­ri­als.

Many explored deposits in the region are cur­rent­ly not being exploit­ed. At the same time, geol­o­gists esti­mate that the ter­ri­to­ry may con­tain resources of sev­er­al metal­lic min­er­als (such as molyb­de­num, tin, sil­ver, etc.), as well as dia­monds. There­fore, the Zhy­to­myr region has sig­nif­i­cant prospects for expand­ing its min­er­al resource base, sup­port­ing Ukraine’s eco­nom­ic needs, and increas­ing state bud­get rev­enues through exports.