First 3 tonnes of phosphorite brought to surface in Lääne-Viru County
On Wednesday, around three tonnes of phosphorite were brought to the surface in Lääne-Viru County, which will now be examined to determine whether it makes sense to mine and refine phosphorite in Estonia. The site has attracted a lot of interest, but access to the exploration area is limited as the drilling is ongoing in the active Aru-Lõuna limestone quarry.
The site of the large-scale phosphorite drilling near Kundla, which has been underway since last Thursday, has been visited not only by journalists, but also protesters, who are against phosphorite mining, local residents and municipal leaders, students and politicians. Those interested in seeing the site are advised that the drilling is taking place in a quarry where limestone is mined.
"The area is restricted, there are guards and a barrier, so you can't just walk in, but we will try to welcome as many people as possible," said Erki Peegel, adviser to the Estonian Geological Survey.
Rakvere Municipal Council Chair Peep Vassiljev took several samples away from the research site. In addition to a dozen phosphorite samples, Vassiljev left with potassium-containing glauconite sandstone and uranium, as well as vanadium-containing graptolite argillite, which can become flammable if stored incorrectly, and which will also be studied by scientists.
"I'm sure I'll be needing these samples quite a few times in the future, because I'll be doing a lot of presenting and explaining to people," said Vassiljev. "It's really good to be able to show people in real life what graptolite argillite is, what phosphorite is and what glauconite sandstone is. It's one thing to talk theory, but it's quite another thing to demonstrate it practically," he added.
On Tuesday, students from the Department of Geology of the University of Tartu visited the research site.
"I think it's worth exploring, because we don't know at the moment what will be useful and what won't be. That's why it was very interesting to come here. We saw how the drilling of the samples is done, and what they want to know before they make decisions," said Heleriin Peterson, a geology student at the University of Tartu.
"I always like these hands-on educational days when we get to see how things are done. I've already gained a lot of new knowledge about Estonian geology and the deposits that are here," said another geology student, Maileen Muttik, who agreed with Peterson that exploring for phosphorite makes sense.
In total, more than a two dozen tonnes of material are to be removed from the ground via seven different boreholes.
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Editor: Michael Cole
