Erschließung der polymetallischen Zinn-Wolfram-Lagerstätte Pöhla-Globenstein

The Pöhla-Globenstein polymetallic tin-tungsten deposit, part of the so-called Pöhla ore field, was initially explored for uranium ore in several unsuccessful stages after the end of the Second World War, and in the meantime it was used for iron ore production. Until 1988, several exploration stages were undertaken to find tin and tungsten ores. Based on this historical potential of various investigation results, Saxony Minerals & Exploration AG (SME) intends to use this deposit for the mining on tin and tungsten ores as well as their accompanying components. The prerequisite for this was first of all the creation of the necessary mining law framework.

The legal basis for the mining of mineral resources is a mining licence according to § 8 of the Federal Mining Act. The mining permit also includes further geological research as part of the preparation and implementation of an extraction operation. On behalf of SME, G.E.O.S. has taken over the management of the mining law application for the "Pöhla-Globenstein" permit field and led it to success.

After the granting of the mining permit by the Saxon Upper Mining Authority, G.E.O.S. was commissioned by SME as an expert company with numerous other services for the development of the Pöhla-Globenstein project. The G.E.O.S. experts accompanied the project from the very beginning - starting with the design, monitoring and evaluation of supplementary exploration work above and below ground, planning and consulting services for future operational planning, through to environmental and process engineering support for the optimisation of water treatment and ore processing.

Resource exploration

The subject of the raw material exploration for the Pöhla-Globenstein project was the the duplication of historical drillings for tin tungsten by the former SDAG Wismut according to the international reporting standard (NI 43-101) with a total of 3 core drillings and a total drill core length of approx. 500 metres ("twin holes"). With the replication of the old drillings, the usability of the data and results from the exploration stages before 1990 had to be proved. The following services were provided by G.E.O.S. in the course of the supplementary raw material exploration:

• Work programme for the exploration of raw materials and preparation of the drilling operation plan, including coordination of all technically involved parties.
• Application, monitoring and documentation including proof of use of funds for funded measures (exploration funding programme of the Federal Government)
• Clarification of property issues (obtaining permits)
• Preparation of and participation in the awarding of contracts for drilling work
• Drilling supervision and documentation of results
• Comparing the results with those of historical exploration stages and checking whether they can be used for resource calculations
• Digital processing of the historical mine map
• Construction of a three-dimensional geological and deposit model and resource calculation

Environmental and process engineering planning and consulting

Projects for mineral exploration and extraction, such as the Pöhla-Globenstein project, always require competent environmental and process engineering services, that have been provided for the preparation of future extraction of the deposit as follows:

• Compilation of the documents for the opening of the general operating plan procedure (scoping documents) and support in the project review with the public authorities.
• Special operating plan for the water treatment plant at shaft 1 Pöhla (exploratory mining)
• Preparation of a scientific paper on the EU Water Framework Directive (EU-WFD; preparation of a framework operating plan)
• Development of the waste rock pile concept
• Engineering services for operation and optimisation of the pilot ore processing plant; monitoring of the operation of the pilot plant for ore processing of the SME at an external operating site; assistance in further plant optimisation and large-scale plant planning

Pre-mining services

The preparatory services were on the one hand used for the direct preparation of the technical deposit development of shaft 1 as a future ventilation shaft and escape and rescue route. On the other hand, they served to support the client by creating modules of the general operating plan and in detail comprised:

• Geological documentation of SME's 175-metre-deep Shaft 1 as the first new shaft in the Ore Mountains for more than 40 years (exploratory extraction and future ventilation shaft)
• Hydrogeological-hydrochemical monitoring of the shaft sinking process
• Preparation of operational specifications for underground geological sampling
• Preliminary planning of the alignment of the deposit (access to the deposit via ramp)
• Drafting of the preliminary geological-geotechnical lateral profile for the ramp construction
• Development of the lateral profiles for the ramp construction, incl. static dimensioning
• Preparation of 3 applications for mining permits for exploration (§ 7 BBergG) and one application for mining permits for extraction (§ 8 BBergG) for the strategic upgrading of the reservoir of the overall project.