Quartz is one of the most mys­te­ri­ous and at the same time most wide­spread min­er­als on Earth. Its crys­tals extend deep into the Earth’s crust, while quartz par­ti­cles are trans­port­ed by rivers over thou­sands of kilo­me­ters. Trans­par­ent rock crys­tal, enig­mat­ic amethyst, del­i­cate pink quartz, or opaque quartzite—all are man­i­fes­ta­tions of the same min­er­al, a fun­da­men­tal build­ing mate­r­i­al of the Earth’s crust. How­ev­er, quartz is not only a nat­ur­al beau­ty; it also has strate­gic impor­tance for many indus­tri­al sec­tors. In Ukraine, it is includ­ed in the list of min­er­al resources of nation­al impor­tance. Its appli­ca­tions range from glass and optics to con­struc­tion and met­al­lur­gy.

Quartz is includ­ed in the list of min­er­als of nation­al impor­tance, approved by Res­o­lu­tion of the Cab­i­net of Min­is­ters of Ukraine No. 827 of Decem­ber 12, 1994, as abra­sive, opti­cal, and piezo-opti­cal raw mate­r­i­al..

Origin and morphology

Quartz forms under a wide range of geo­log­i­cal con­di­tions: with­in deep mag­mat­ic bod­ies, in hydrother­mal sys­tems, in frac­tures of meta­mor­phic rocks, and even in marine sed­i­ments. It has an extreme­ly sta­ble struc­ture: crys­talline sil­i­con diox­ide (SiO₂), typ­i­cal­ly occur­ring as hexag­o­nal prisms or mas­sive aggre­gates.

Its colour vari­a­tions depend on trace ele­ment inclu­sions or nat­ur­al radi­a­tion expo­sure: pur­ple in amethyst, pink in rose quartz, and smoky in smoky quartz. How­ev­er, the most indus­tri­al­ly valu­able form is colour­less or white quartz sand.

Physical and mechanical properties

Quartz is char­ac­ter­ized by a com­bi­na­tion of hard­ness, ther­mal sta­bil­i­ty, and chem­i­cal inert­ness. Its hard­ness is 7 on the Mohs scale, mak­ing it one of the most scratch-resis­tant and mechan­i­cal­ly durable min­er­als. Quartz exhibits a con­choidal frac­ture, and fresh­ly bro­ken sur­faces often have a glassy lus­ter. It has no cleav­age, which leads to irreg­u­lar frac­tur­ing under mechan­i­cal stress.

Quartz has a den­si­ty of approx­i­mate­ly 2.65 g/cm³. When heat­ed above 573 °C, it under­goes a phase tran­si­tion from α‑quartz to β‑quartz with a slight vol­ume change. Its melt­ing tem­per­a­ture is about 1713 °C. Quartz is an excel­lent elec­tri­cal insu­la­tor and does not con­duct elec­tric cur­rent; how­ev­er, it has piezo­elec­tric prop­er­ties, which enable its use in gen­er­a­tors and res­onators. In nature, quartz crys­tals typ­i­cal­ly form hexag­o­nal pris­mat­ic shapes with pyra­mi­dal ter­mi­na­tions.

Applications of quartz

Due to its phys­i­cal and chem­i­cal prop­er­ties, quartz is indis­pens­able in many indus­tries. Its largest-scale use is in the glass indus­try. High-puri­ty quartz sand with a high SiO₂ con­tent and min­i­mal impu­ri­ties is a key raw mate­r­i­al for the pro­duc­tion of win­dow, con­tain­er, lab­o­ra­to­ry, opti­cal, and spe­cial­ty glass. Such appli­ca­tions require high­ly homo­ge­neous and ther­mal­ly sta­ble sands.

In met­al­lur­gy, quartz acts as a flux, help­ing to remove impu­ri­ties from molten met­als. It is espe­cial­ly impor­tant in blast fur­nace oper­a­tions and fer­roal­loy pro­duc­tion. Quartz sands are also wide­ly used in mold­ing mix­tures in foundry engi­neer­ing, where they ensure pre­ci­sion and ther­mal resis­tance of cast­ing molds.

The refrac­to­ry prop­er­ties of quartzites make them suit­able for lin­ing fur­naces and high-tem­per­a­ture indus­tri­al units. In the ceram­ics indus­try, quartz is added to porce­lain and faience com­po­si­tions, improv­ing mechan­i­cal strength and ther­mal resis­tance of fin­ished prod­ucts.

Thanks to its piezo­elec­tric prop­er­ties, quartz is wide­ly used in electronics—in quartz oscil­la­tors, res­onators, and sen­sors. Its crys­tals are essen­tial com­po­nents in clocks, com­put­ers, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems. High-qual­i­ty opti­cal quartz is also cru­cial in laser and pre­ci­sion instru­men­ta­tion tech­nolo­gies.

In addi­tion, quartzites—especially col­ored varieties—are wide­ly used in con­struc­tion as dec­o­ra­tive and fin­ish­ing mate­ri­als. They are applied in facade cladding, paving, tiles, stair­cas­es, win­dow sills, and oth­er archi­tec­tur­al ele­ments.

Quartz deposits in Ukraine

Piezo­elec­tric raw mate­ri­als

Piezo­elec­tric raw mate­ri­als remain impor­tant today, although syn­thet­ic crys­tals are increas­ing­ly used in mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy. Nat­ur­al quartz suit­able for piezo­elec­tric appli­ca­tions is still in demand in instru­ment engi­neer­ing, med­ical equip­ment, and micro­elec­tron­ics. Besides the well-known Volyn deposit (Ovruch area), promis­ing occur­rences also include the Dashavske (Zhy­to­myr region), Inhulske (Kirovohrad region), Hutianske, and Korostyshiv­ske deposits, where quartz veins suit­able for high-qual­i­ty piezo­elec­tric quartz are found. Ukrain­ian nat­ur­al quartz, includ­ing defect-free rock crys­tal, once sup­plied not only the defense indus­try but also radio elec­tron­ics and the watch indus­try. Today, these resources are again con­sid­ered strate­gic due to the grow­ing glob­al focus on min­er­al resource secu­ri­ty.

Quartz raw mate­ri­als for the glass indus­try

Vein quartz in Ukraine is most wide­spread with­in the Ukrain­ian Shield (USh) and Don­bas. The main source of high-qual­i­ty quartz raw mate­r­i­al is the Volyn deposit of cham­ber peg­matites, where both small and giant quartz crys­tals (up to 2–3 m in size and over 10 tons in mass) occur in pock­ets. In addi­tion to Volyn, numer­ous quartz veins have been iden­ti­fied with­in the Ukrain­ian Shield, includ­ing the Lenchyn, Arseniv, Sklyana Hora, and Apos­tolove occur­rences, as well as in the Don­bas region. Among them, Sklyana Hora is char­ac­ter­ized by large thick­ness (up to 50 m) and length (up to 500 m); its quartz is light grey, mas­sive, with inclu­sions of feldspar, tour­ma­line, and mus­covite.

An impor­tant type of quartz raw mate­r­i­al is quartz sand. In Ukraine, 29 glass raw mate­r­i­al deposits are known with total reserves of 253 mil­lion tons. Major deposits include Avdi­ivske and Novomykhailivske (Donet­sk region), Husarivske, Novose­livske, Berestovenkivske (Kharkiv region), Velykyi Hly­bovy­chi and Voloshyne (Lviv region), and Papir­nia (Cherni­hiv region).

The main stages of quartz sand for­ma­tion include Pale­o­gene, Oligocene–Miocene, and Pliocene–Quaternary epochs. The Buchak series of the Pale­o­gene con­sists of con­ti­nen­tal and marine sed­i­ments with high SiO₂ con­tent (up to 99.4%) and is used for glass and mold­ing pur­pos­es. Sands of the Kharkiv series are fine-grained marine deposits rich in glau­conite, which can trans­form into quartz sands upon weath­er­ing.

The Polta­va series of the Oligocene–Miocene is wide­ly dis­trib­uted in the north­east­ern part of Ukraine. It con­sists of well-sort­ed fine-grained quartz sands with SiO₂ con­tent up to 99.1%. The Avdi­iv­ka deposit, the main source of glass sand, is of indus­tri­al impor­tance and is char­ac­ter­ized by a high pro­por­tion of the 0.25–0.1 mm frac­tion (up to 99.46%).

In the Black Sea depres­sion, includ­ing Crimea, deposits of Sar­ma­t­ian, Meot­ian, Kuyal­nykian, and Pon­tian stages are rep­re­sent­ed by fine quartz sands with SiO₂ con­tent up to 99%. In the Pre­carpathi­an region, Opil­lia hori­zon sands are of high qual­i­ty and suit­able for glass pro­duc­tion with­out enrich­ment. The Velykyi Hly­bovy­chi deposit in Lviv region is one of the lead­ing quartz sand sup­pli­ers, with SiO₂ con­tent up to 99.7%, suit­able for win­dow glass, mold­ing, and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als.

Quartz sands for refrac­to­ry pro­duc­tion

Quartz sands are impor­tant raw mate­ri­als in the pro­duc­tion of dinas refrac­to­ries. To improve their phys­i­cal and chem­i­cal prop­er­ties, monomin­er­al­ic quartz sands are added to the charge in amounts of 5–7%. The most com­mon­ly used are sands from the Kras­no­horiv­ka and Riznyky deposits in Donet­sk region.

The Kras­no­horiv­ka deposit con­sists of quartz sands of the Polta­va series (Neo­gene). The pro­duc­tive lay­er thick­ness ranges from 2.4 to 16.3 m (aver­age 8.1 m). Over­bur­den thick­ness is also about 8.1 m. The sands con­tain high SiO₂ (95.0–99.8%) with minor impu­ri­ties: Al₂O₃ (0.2–4.18%), Fe₂O₃ (0.05–0.4%), MgO (up to 0.38%), CaO (0.8%), alka­lis (0.08–1.99%), SO₃ (0.05–0.1%). Bal­ance reserves (cat­e­gories B+C1) are 4 mil­lion tons. The deposit has been exploit­ed since 1946.

The Riznyky deposit is sim­i­lar in geo­log­i­cal struc­ture to Kras­no­horiv­ka. Its reserves are 2.8 mil­lion tons (B+C1), and it is oper­at­ed by “Syvyrskyi Com­bine”. Sands are used for refrac­to­ry prod­ucts, ther­mal insu­la­tion blocks, mullite–silica fibers, and light­weight refrac­to­ry mate­ri­als.

The total reserves of refrac­to­ry quartz sands of the Kras­no­horivskyi and Riznikivskyi deposits amount to 6.8 mil­lion tons, but pro­duc­tion in 2002 was only 5,000 tons. Export of quartz sands for refrac­to­ry pro­duc­tion from Ukraine remains insignif­i­cant (in par­tic­u­lar to Rus­sia).

To expand the min­er­al and raw mate­r­i­al base, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of explo­ration and devel­op­ment of Savastyanivs­ka Square with­in of Donet­sk region is being con­sid­ered, where the esti­mat­ed resources of quartz raw mate­ri­als are esti­mat­ed at the lev­el of 26 mil­lion tons. The use of high-qual­i­ty quartz sands, which are mined as a relat­ed com­po­nent at the Malyshiv plac­er deposit, is also promis­ing.

Mold­ing quartz sand deposits in Ukraine

Ukraine has a strong raw mate­r­i­al base of mold­ing sands across Don­bas, the Dnieper–Donets Basin (DDB), Ukrain­ian Shield, Voly­no-Podil­lia plate, Black Sea depres­sion, and Crimea. Key deposits are asso­ci­at­ed with Buchak, Kharkiv, and Polta­va series, as well as Sar­ma­t­ian, Pon­tian, and Qua­ter­nary for­ma­tions.

The state bal­ance includes 14 deposits of form­ing sands and 6 com­plex ones with total reserves of 905 mil­lion tons (A+B+C1) and 195 mil­lion tons (C2). Pro­duc­tion in 2002 was 8,000 tons. The largest con­cen­tra­tions of reserves are con­cen­trat­ed in the Dnipropetro­vsk and Donet­sk regions. The esti­mat­ed resources are esti­mat­ed at 12.5 bil­lion tonnes. In addi­tion, there are 4 off-bal­ance deposits: Hni­dynske, Kash­perivske, Lipenske, Starovirivske.

Among the most sig­nif­i­cant deposits, it is worth high­light­ing:

• The Husarivske deposit, locat­ed in the Kharkiv region, is char­ac­ter­ized by high-qual­i­ty coarse-grained quartz sands. The sands belong to grades DO, T045, T0315A, and the thick­ness of the pro­duc­tive lay­er ranges from 7.5 to 31.7 m.
• The Batyshiv­ske deposit, also in the Kharkiv region, con­tains glau­conite, quartz, and clayey sands of the Kharkiv and Buchak for­ma­tions. It is dis­tin­guished by a high con­tent of the main frac­tion (up to 96.6%), with fore­cast resources of 102 mil­lion tons.
• The Cha­siv Yar deposit (Don­bas) includes lean and semi-fat mold­ing sands with a quartz con­tent of up to 93% and refrac­tori­ness up to 1690°C. It also con­tains acces­so­ry min­er­als such as ilmenite, rutile, kyan­ite, and tour­ma­line.

In the Dnieper–Donets Depres­sion (DDD), deposits such as Novose­livske, Avdi­ivske, and Cha­siv Yar are known, where sands of the Polta­va Series are pre­dom­i­nant­ly quartz in com­po­si­tion, of marine ori­gin, well-sort­ed, with rel­a­tive­ly high SiO₂ con­tent (up to 90%).

On the Ukrain­ian Shield, deposits such as the Maly­shevske (261.9 mil­lion t), Orlivske (26.4 mil­lion t), and Taromske (8 mil­lion t) deposits are locat­ed. They are of indus­tri­al impor­tance and are used for the pro­duc­tion of mold­ing and refrac­to­ry mate­ri­als.

On the Volhynia–Podillia Plate, the Voloshynske and Yat­synivske deposits are known, asso­ci­at­ed with Upper Tor­ton­ian sand for­ma­tions. In Don­bas, the Sha­belkivske, Artemivske, Husarivske and oth­er deposits occur.