Mineral raw materials for engineering works

To the group of raw materials for engineering works there have been deposits often called as “earth masses for building purposes” classified. They are usually clayey-sandy and clayey rocks, but also others - sandstones and limestones which do not fulfill the criteria necessary for dimension and crushed stones. These raw materials are utilized in the road industry for the road embankments building and the maintenance of dirt roads surfaces. Clayey rocks can be also used for the packing and reclamation of waste disposals, for hydro-building and other purposes. The usefulness of these raw materials is determined by i.e. their geological-engineering parameters or sealing properties.

Usually, resources of mineral raw materials for engineering works are documented as an accompanying raw material in sand and gravel deposits, whereas in only about 30% of cases are documented as the main raw material.

Total anticipated economic resources amounted to 10.351 m³ in 2017 and increased by 1.003 million m³ (10.7%) in comparison with the previous year.

There were 2 new deposits documented in 2017 (located in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship): Skorzów (0.947 million mm³) and Sukowolska Wola (0.066 million mm³). As a result of the verification and harmonization process, the resources registry was also completed with 2 deposits: Mściwojów I – Pole A and Mściwojów I – Pole B. The deposits were documented in 1996 and exploited for the earth dam building process of the “Mściwojów” reservoir, which was putting into service in 1999.

The table given below shows the current state of identification and management of mineral raw materials for engineering works resources in Poland.

Table 1. Mineral raw materials for engineering works - million m³

The output of mineral raw materials for engineering works amounted to 0.180 million mm³ in 2017 and increased by 0.021 million3 (13.0%) in comparison with the previous year. There were 13 deposits under exploitation. Moreover, for the building process of flood banks there were almost 0.058 million mm³ of the building ceramics raw material from Biecz 1 deposit (Małopolskie Voivodeship) used. The raw material from this deposit had been previously used as a ceramic raw material but due to the disadvantage on the building materials market the raw material lost its value (nevertheless, the deposit is still placed in the chapter Building ceramics raw material). The ceramic factory met the problems with raw material sales, the production became unprofitable and the improvement of the economic results seemed to be impossible. Thus, using the raw material for hydro-building purposes should be rated as quite positive as it allowed to develop the part of Biecz 1 deposit using the existing mine and its infrastructure.

Economic resources were calculated for 10 deposits. They amounted to 3.991 million mm³ which accounts for 94.0% of anticipated economic and sub-economic resources of these deposits. In some cases, economic resources are larger than anticipated economic resources demonstrated in Table 2, because they not only contain anticipated economic resources but also anticipated sub-economic – which are not shown in the collation below.

Table 2. List of mineral raw materials for engineering works deposits
– thousand m³

The figure given below shows changes in domestic resources and production of mineral raw materials for engineering works in Poland in the years 2000-2017.

Prepared by: Wojciech Szczygielski