The EU’s ambitious goals with respect to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (NetZero Industry Act, European Green Deal) will require an increase in critical raw material demand, mostly in metals. To meet this demand, a better understanding of the formation as well as the utilization of deposits located in deeper bedrock is essential. The Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) is coordinating a large Horizon Europe project named UNDERCOVER (starting on January 1st, 2025, and running for 3 years). It includes 16 research partners across Europe and is aimed at understanding the formation processes of deep critical raw materials, and the development of novel methods to identify these unused resources.
The Institute of Geophysics of the CAS is leading the Geophysics part of UNDERCOVER (G. Hill, Team Volcanic and Magmatic Processes and C. Sippl, Team Active Plate Tectonic Processes). These teams will run magnetotelluric and seismological field deployments in the Kuusamo Schist belt in northern Finland, a region with rich metal reserves. The recorded data will be used for geophysical imaging to characterize the signature of such deposits, and to provide constraints on the geological evolution of the area.