What kind of stone is mined in Ukraine?

This noble stone serves as an excellent material for the manufacture of granite paving stones and granite tiles.
Granite paving stones are an excellent material for paving roads and paths, squares and gardens. Many squares in Ukraine and Europe are paved with granite paving stones.
Granite tiles are used for exterior and interior decoration of buildings. Less valuable granites are used as a solid filler for the production of concrete and reinforced concrete. Map of Ukraine showing the location of granite deposits.

Granite deposits in Ukraine

Ukraine is one of the richest countries in terms of natural resource production. It can be proud not only of its black soil reserves, but also of the world’s largest reserve of decorative facing stone, mainly granite. If we talk about specific figures, the reserves of this stone are about 200 million cubic meters.

Granite and its varieties

Granite is one of the most common crystalline rocks in the earth’s crust. It has unique properties such as strength, frost resistance, and durability. This is why granite is widely used in construction. Its unique texture allows it to be used as the main material for the construction of monumental structures, to be used as external cladding of buildings, to create architectural monuments. Granite “Gabbro” and “Labradorite” have a black color and varied texture. Gabbro is more homogeneous, and labradorite is coarse-grained with unusual inclusions of crystals, mostly large in size, they can reach from 8 to 10 cm. Due to their color, these types of stone are mainly used for the manufacture of ritual products, as well as for outdoor work.

The advantages of granite stone:

– strength (it is second only to diamond)
– heat resistance (granite countertops can withstand high temperatures)
– does not become dirty (due to its density, granite by its nature repels stains well)
– does not fade (with everyday use, the countertops retain their natural color)

The main granite deposits in Ukraine:

– Bukinskoe (Volodarsk, Volyn district)
– Korostyshevskoye (Zhytomyr region, Korostyshevsky district)
– Golovinskoye (Chernyakhovsky district)
– Ivano-Dolinskoye
– Bystrievskoe
– Zhezhelevskoe
– Evdokimovskoe
– Emelyanovskoe
– Maslavskoe
– Novodanilovskoe And this is only a small part of what can be listed because Ukrainian granite can literally be found in almost every region. In addition, each deposit has its own variety. The largest number of granite deposits is located in the Zhytomyr region. Korostyshev is the richest in granite. Most of the granite workshops are located there, where stone from nearby quarries is processed for the production of ritual products.

Ukraine presents the most unique palette of colors and shades:

– black color
– silver color
– blue with sparkles
– plum shades
– golden color
– rich green
– peacock tail color
– deep red

It’s not enough to have wealth if you don’t know how to use it.

Rich red and green colors are often used for decorations. American experts have concluded that we have $20 trillion worth of wealth buried under our feet. Since the times of stone processing by the hands of a craftsman are a thing of the past, today the stone processing and stone mining industries are an important component of the industrial wealth of Ukraine. Of the 110 granite deposits discovered, about 40 are put into production. Despite the fact that in terms of reserves of facing and decorative stone, Ukraine occupies a leading position in the mining industry, unfortunately, it is one of the last. This is explained by the lack of modern equipment and advanced technologies. Our company sells granite from various deposits in Ukraine. Our assortment includes a large stock of high-quality and multi-colored stone for any application. The group of jewelry and semi-precious raw materials, often called “gems,” includes minerals and some rocks, which, due to their properties, are used by mankind (both directly and after certain processing) as decorations, frames, or simply for the knowledge of nature and aesthetic pleasure. Among them there are jewelry, ornamental (semi-precious) and collection stones. Varieties of gems Jewelry (or precious) stones are minerals characterized by beautiful color, brilliance, transparency and hardness. Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, garnets, topazes, and amber are used to make a variety of, often very expensive, jewelry or to frame jewelry made of precious metals or ornamental stones. Ornamental stones include some minerals (agate, opal, amazonite, rhodonite, jade, etc.) and rocks (graphic pegmatite, aventurine quartzite, colored marble, etc.). They have beautiful decorative properties, pleasant coloring, fairly high hardness, viscosity and are well sanded and polished, thanks to which they are used for the manufacture of relatively inexpensive jewelry, souvenirs, caskets, table frames, etc. Layout of deposits and occurrences of ornamental and jewelry raw materials in Ukraine. 1 – diamond (regions of occurrence: 1 – Volyn-Podolsk; 2 – North-Western; 3 – Pobuzhsky; 4 – Central; 5 – Middle-Transnistria; 6 – West Azov; 7 – East Azov); 2 – amber (8 – Pripyat amber-bearing basin; 9 – Klesovskoe deposit; 10 – Volnoye deposit; 11 – Dnieper amber-bearing basin; 12 – Dniester amber-bearing basin); 3 – jet (13 – Beshuiskoye deposit); 4 – topaz and beryl (14 – Volyn deposit); 5 – rhodonite (15 – Priluki deposit); 6 – marble onyx (16 – Kalyusik deposit). Their very attractive and rare formations in the form of individual crystals and other samples, which serve as decoration for many mineralogical collections of museums and private collections, serve as collectible minerals and rocks. Some gems, due to their unique qualities (diamond, quartz, tourmaline, ruby, amber, etc.), are used in instrument making, radio electronics and other areas of industry. The variety of gems, which seems limitless, is not so vast. It belongs, first of all, to the category of rare mineral formations, which currently number over 3000 species, and no more than 70 are classified as valuable stones. Among them are representatives of almost all mineral classes, formed under various physical and chemical conditions observed in the earth’s crust. More than 300 manifestations (more than 40 types) of ornamental and jewelry raw materials are known in Ukraine. Some deposits were developed at one time (up to a dozen), and there are good prospects for the discovery of new deposits. The sizes of natural diamonds range from micro grains to large crystals weighing hundreds and thousands of carats. The world’s largest diamond, “Kulinan” weighing 3106 carats was found in South Africa at the Premier mine in 1905. Diamond (meaning invincible in Greek) is the hardest known natural mineral. Thanks to this and its unique brilliance, it attracted the attention of people in ancient times. Over the past two decades, global diamond production has increased by almost 50%, amounting to about 150 million carats in recent years. Its total planetary resources are estimated at approximately 5,2-5,4 billion carats. Currently, they are growing due to new diamond-bearing territories in Canada, Australia, Namibia and the Russian Federation. Diamond deposits are divided into primary and alluvial. World diamond production in 2003 thousand carats technical, thousand carats In quantitative terms, over the past decade, Australia has been the leader in world diamond mining by a wide margin, but in terms of value its production ranks only seventh. The world championship in this indicator is held by Botswana, which produces a significant share of high-quality jewelry diamonds. In world markets, there are two types of diamonds – jewelry and industrial. In the total mass of rough diamonds, more than 80% are industrial diamonds. The minimum size of jewelry diamonds is 0,05 carats (0,01 g), and crystals larger than 10 carats are considered large. If a diamond weighs more than 50 carats, it is given a name. The first officially recorded diamond crystal in Ukraine was discovered by geologists in 1949 in the alluvial deposits of the river. Bazavluk. In the early 50s, diamond crystals were discovered in the river sediments of the Dniester and Southern Bug. Currently, there are seven diamond mining areas in the country. Amber has been well known to mankind for several millennia. Primitive amber products were found during the study of Paleolithic sites in the Pyrenees, Scandinavia, Ukraine, the Baltic states and Poland, located near known deposits. In Ukraine, amber and products made from it are found quite often during archaeological excavations – the oldest of them are near the village. Mezhirich (on the bank of the Ros River) are 17-20 thousand years old. During archaeological excavations in Kyiv on the territory of the St. Michael’s Monastery in 1938, workshop KhP-KhSh Art. on amber processing. It contained 650 g of unprocessed raw materials, blanks for products and finished products (beads, crosses). Amber is a high-molecular compound of organic acids (C₁₀H₁₆O₄), containing an average of 79% carbon and 10,5% each of hydrogen and oxygen, which contains impurities of up to 24 other chemical elements. Weathering processes significantly affect the elemental composition of amber. There were many different hypotheses about the origin of amber. Only in the XVIII century. based on a comparison of its properties with resins from coniferous trees M. Lomonosov proved the plant origin of amber and soon the theory of organic origin became generally accepted. Among semi-precious stones, amber occupies one of the first places due to its extensive color palette, containing all the colors of the rainbow. The predominant colors are yellow and golden yellow (amber), but there are varieties of red, brown, black, white and blue, as well as colorless specimens. Single-color amber is rare, and experts count up to 350 shades. Based on the geological structure, the nature of the distribution of individual climatic zones, the types of amber deposits, their age and location conditions, two large amber provinces of the world are distinguished – Eurasian and American. The first occupies the northern part of Europe and Asia, and the second spreads mainly in North and Central America. The largest samples of amber most often found in the Baltic states and Poland. The largest of them were stones weighing 12 kg (discovered in the second half of the 9,7th century in Prussia) and XNUMX kg (found in Pomerania). There are three amber-bearing basins on the territory of Ukraine – Pripyat, Dnieper and Dniester. Pripyatsky is located within the western and northern slopes of the Ukrainian shield (the northern parts of the Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr and Kyiv regions). Dnieper is located mainly on the northeastern slope of the Ukrainian shield (Kiev, Cherkassy, ​​Poltava, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions). Dniester is located on the territory of the Ciscarpathian region and the Carpathian fold system (Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions). Jet, like amber, belongs to jewelry stones of organic origin. This is a black variety of fossil brown coal, formed during the coalification of coniferous trees of the Araucariaceae family. It consists predominantly of carbon (60-90%) with admixtures of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, aluminum, etc. Jet occurs in the form of thin (1-20 cm) lenses and layers in brown coal and carbonaceous shales. Its first finds are known from Asia Minor and Transcaucasia; later it began to be mined in Spain, France, Germany and the USA, and the world-famous jet deposit is located on the Yorkshire coast of England. Jet is used as a relatively cheap jewelry stone for making necklaces, rosaries, crosses and other church and ritual decorations. In Ukraine, the source of jewelry jet may eventually become the Beshuiskoye lignite deposit, located on the northern slope of the Main Range of the Crimean Mountains, in the upper reaches of the river. Kacha. Here, seams of brown coal up to 0,5 m thick occur among clays and sandstones of Jurassic age. The Museum of Geography of Moscow University houses topaz from Volyn pegmatites weighing 68 kg. In addition, a topaz crystal weighing 117 kg (length 82 cm, thickness 37 cm) was found in Ukraine. Topaz is a fluorinated aluminum silicate with the formula A1₂[SiO₄](F, OH)₂ and a variety of colors – from colorless, water-transparent to golden, yellow, pink, light green and blue. The main area of ​​application of topaz is the jewelry industry. Pink topazes are the most valuable here. In addition, it is used as an expensive collectible mineral, and in industry as an abrasive. The bulk of world topaz production comes from Brazil, the UK, the USA, Mexico, Mozambique, Mexico, Pakistan and the Russian Federation. In Ukraine (in the Zhytomyr region), topazes were found in placers in 1867 along with fragments of smoky quartz, morion, rock crystal and beryl. Volyn topazes are a well-individualized mineral, among which single-headed crystals and their intergrowths predominate. One of the world’s largest beryl crystals, 24 cm long and weighing about 2,5 kg, was found in the Urals in 1828. The largest Ukrainian beryl crystal, mined in Volyn, measured 38×14 cm and weighed about 16 kg (“Pudovik”). Later, a crystal of precious beryl of pure water, grass-green color, weighing 5,36 kg, was found here. Beryl is an aluminum beryl silicate with the formula Be₃A1₂[And₆О₁₈] and colored in golden yellow, yellowish green, yellow, green and pink. This is a very valuable jewelry stone, the varieties of which include emerald, aquamarine, bixbyite, golden beryl, goshenite, heliodor, and morganite. Ore raw materials are also used to obtain beryllium. The most valuable varieties of beryl mined in the world are emerald and aquamarine. Colombia ranks first in the world in emerald mining (where the world’s richest deposits of high-quality emeralds have been mined for more than 400 years), followed by Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Madagascar and India. They provide approximately a third of world production. The main deposits of aquamarine are concentrated in Brazil, Madagascar, China, Pakistan, Nepal, India, Mozambique and Nigeria. The greatest practical and scientific significance in Ukraine is beryl from pegmatites of the central part of the Volyn deposit. The average mass of the crystals in them ranges from 0,1-0,5 kg to a few tens of kilograms. The largest product made from Ural rhodonite is the sarcophagus of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna weighing 7 tons, installed in the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in St. Petersburg. It was carved from a single 47-ton block, Rhodonite is a silicate of manganese and calcium, having the formula (Mn, Ca)5[Si₁₅O₁₅]. Depending on the ratio of Mn and Ca, its color varies from dark pink-red to bright pink, crimson and pale pink-gray. The black veins are associated with the presence of dendrites of manganese oxides, which create complex, sophisticated patterns and landscape patterns that give the stone an attractive decorative effect. Deposits of rhodonite are known in the Russian Federation, the USA, Australia, Uzbekistan and Madagascar. The largest Ukrainian deposit of rhodonite (Prilukskoe) is located in the Meso-Paleozoic rocks of the Chyvchyn mountains of the Marmarosh massif of the Carpathians (Ivano-Frankivsk region). Rhodonite here is crimson in color and occurs in the form of small grains, nests and veins. The deposit’s reserves of quality raw materials are 668 tons, and the total reserves of rhodonite-containing rocks are 15910 tons. Marble onyx Marble onyx is a very dense rock consisting of calcite and aragonite, representing different modifications of CaCO₃. The ability to be polished to a mirror shine allows it to be used for the manufacture of a variety of artistic products – wine glasses, vases, coasters, ashtrays, boxes, etc. It is also used as a decorative material for cladding the interiors of palaces, religious buildings and mausoleums. Marble onyx is formed by layer-by-layer deposition of calcium carbonate from calcium carbonate solutions. Its largest deposits have been discovered in Algeria, Egypt, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, USA, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Kalyusik deposit is known in Ukraine, located in the Khmelnitsky region. Productive here are the lower Sarmatian limestones, in which marble onyx fills the cracks. The predicted resources of the deposit are estimated at 70,8 tons. Share this link: