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Mining Journal, London
Vol. 339, No. 8715, p. 412
December 13, 2002
MINING WEEK
Central Eurasia on the map
An atlas covering the central part of the Eurasian lithospheric plate, an area of some 7.5 million km2, is
now available*.
This vast region includes 15 oil basins as well as major mining areas such as the South Urals,
central Kazakhstan, Tian Shan, Pamir, Kunlun, and Altai regions. Compilation of the atlas has
relied on a vast amount of geological and geophysical data as well as data from thousands of
boreholes and papers on stratigraphy, tectonics, magmatism, paleogeography etc.
There are 71 digital maps illustrating the geological structure, development history, mineral resources
and the natural environment of which 37 are included in the printed version. More than 600 geological
sections were correlated of which 280 are in the printed version, and all are contained within the digital
version. The bulk of the Atlas comprises lithological- palaeo-geographical maps at a scale of 1:2.5
million but there are also structural maps.
The atlas project, focused on the geology, ecology, oil, gas and mineral resources of Central Eurasia,
was initiated in 1996 and sponsored by the governments of Azerbaijan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. There have also been sponsors from the private
sector including mining companies such as Placer Dome Inc. of Canada.
The formidable task of co-ordinating this unique international project was undertaken by Dr Oleg
Fedorenko of Kazakhstan’s Scientific Research Institute of Natural Resources (YugGeo) in Almaty.
Work on the atlas project is facilitated in two stages, and the atlas available now is the result of the first
stage (1996-2002), whereas the second stage (involving in addition, Armenia, Georgia, and Turkey), will
focus on the geology, geodynamics and metallogeny of the Central Eurasian transboundary basins and
ore provinces (2002-06).
The atlas was officially launched in London last week at a workshop at the Natural History Museum
(NHM) organised by the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Mineral Studies (CERCAMS). The
Centre, supported by mining companies and other agencies, is a forum for mineral deposit studies
focused on the former Soviet Union and adjacent territories of eastern Europe, China and Mongolia.
CERCAMS is assisting in the sales and marketing of the atlas, which is available at a price of US$600.
An order form can be obtained via the CERCAMS website:
www.nhm.ac.uk/mineralogy/cercams/index.htm
The atlas contains only an estimated 40% of the total available project data. A more comprehensive
atlas in digitized form (CorelDraw, ArcView) will eventually be made available as a CD. To date, the
project has cost an estimated US$2.0 million (not counting the invaluable datasets from the archives of
Soviet-era research and exploration which were accessed and used free-of-charge).
* Fedorenko, O.A., Bykadorov, V.A., Daukeev, S.Zh., Miletenko, N.V., Morozov, A.F., Uzhkenov, B.S. et
al.: ‘Atlas of lithological-paleogeographical, structural, palinspastic and geoenvironmental maps of
Central Eurasia’. Publisher: © Scientific Research Institute of Natural Resources YugGeo, Almaty 2002.
ISBN 9965-13-566-5.