Outlining the cobalt and phosphor exploration potential areas and mineralisation in Europe: a collaboration between FRAME and MINDeSEA projects

ABSTRACT: One of the primary goals in FRAME project’s WP3 (Critical and Strategic Raw Materials Map of Europe), in collaboration with other work packages of FRAME and other GeoERA projects, is to produce and present the mineralisation and potential areas for CRM in Europe. Identifying new resources of supply critical mineral potential on land and in the European seabed for CRM needed for energy transition, is crucial for the European Union. In this regard, identifying and mapping of the major metallogenic areas for different type of mineralisation is essential. The global demand for CRM and strategic minerals containing cobalt, phosphorous, rare earth elements, tellurium, manganese, nickel, lithium and copper, concurrent with the rapidly diminishing quality and quantity of land-based mined deposits, has placed the seafloor as a promising new frontier for the exploration of mineral resources. To develop metallogenic research and models at regional and deposit scales, with special attention to strategic critical minerals, for which the EU’s downstream industry is highly dependent in the mid- and long-term perspectives, one must go from the known to the unknown, or at least, less known. Collating this information into favourable terrains is absolutely necessary to be able to understand mineralisation at the various scales. The latter was one of FRAME’s objectives as we will see developed below for phosphate and cobalt mineralisation. N/A