Industrial mineral occurrences in Greenland - a review

The industrial mineral potential of Greenland, in combination with improved infrastructural facilities and a fast growing international demand for high quality industrial minerals products, has brought Greenland within the sphere of interest of the minerals industry. The aim of this paper is to present a brief review of some of the known, industrial mineral occurrences in Greenland, of which several are unique on a world scale. However, exploration efforts up to now have mainly focused on "traditional" metal ore targets and have not paid much attention to the industrial minerals. Consequently, the data concerning industrial mineral targets in general are rather scarce and scattered.

In this paper an industrial mineral is defined in accordance with Bates (1983), as any rock, mineral, or other naturally occurring substance of economic value, exclusive of metallic ores, mineral fuels, and gemstones. However, certain exceptions to the definition have been made; some of the rare earth elements and Nb-Ta occurrences are included, because in terms of technical and commercial aspects they are comparable to the more traditional industrial mineral ore types. Diamonds are excluded.

The selection of minerals to be dealt with in this review has not been based on size or quality of data, since the majority of the occurrences are only briefly assessed. Minerals have been included if sufficient information in terms of geological descriptions or samples are available.