Aggregate Resources in Norway. Superquarries an important mining industry of the future

Abstract

The Geological Survey of Norway is in the process of carrying out an inventory of deposits of sand, gravel and hard rock aggregate throughout the country. The goals are for the Gravel database to be complete by 1995 and for the Hard Rock Aggregate database to be complete for small local quarries by 1996. The purpose of the deposits concerned, through identification of their location and quality and of possible land-use conflicts. In 1978 the Department for the Environment took an initiative to assemble the information from these files into a central, complete, computer-based register at NGU. Superquarries in Norway can be our most important mineral industry on land in the future. NGU is planning to map all potential coastal rock units for which environmental, topographic and transport criteria would allow quarring from the year 2000.