Thrace and Anatolia are two unequal in geographicthe part to which Turkey shares. While the first is part of Europe, the second is completely located in the Asian part and occupies the almost perfectly rectangular peninsula of Asia Minor.
Features of the relief of Turkey and minerals
Despite the growth in the share of renewable sourcesenergy in the production of electricity, fossil fuels still take up more than 86% in its production. And this means that in the most advantageous position there are countries that either extract such resources on their territory or are in close proximity to the exporting countries. Turkey, unfortunately, does not have significant hydrocarbon reserves on its territory.
As a developing country, TurkeyIt needs a lot of fossil energy resources and depends on its foreign suppliers, as there are only coal mines among the large deposits of energy minerals in Turkey.
Seeking to reduce dependence on foreignthe Turkish government has adopted the "Energy Vision 2023" program, which involves the use of local coal deposits and the active development of "green energy", based on renewable sources. In the future, the Turkish authorities hope to reduce the share of foreign energy carriers to 38%.
Historical mines
Despite the small amount of fossilfuel and other mineral resources in Turkey, there are more than enough for the country. It must be said that in the territory of present-day Turkey, one of the first mines in the world was equipped, in which people began to mine copper and iron.
Today, the level of miningTurkey is ranked twenty-eighth in the world, and in terms of the diversity of mineral raw materials - the tenth. Most of the minerals mined on the territory of the country are used and processed here.
The oldest mining sites are inCentral Anatolia and in the east of the country, in the foothills of the Taurus, copper is mined there from the ll millennium BC. e. Other minerals in Turkey are iron, lead, mercury, tin, silver. The country is especially rich in boron, 75% of the world's reserves are located on the territory of the republic.
Minerals of Turkey. Briefly
To begin with it is necessary to determine the main areasthe occurrence of natural resources of industrial value. Rich brown coal deposits are located mainly in the west of the country and in the western part of the Black Sea coast, near the city of Zonguldak, from which the layers are stretched deeper into the peninsula to a depth of up to two hundred kilometers, and this area is considered to be the most well developed from a technical point of view.
It is believed that the features of the relief of Turkey andthe minerals lying in its western part may be of interest to potential investors, but the difficult geopolitical situation and the border with Syria impede the active development of the provinces.
Here it is worth noting that if earlier raw materials went for export, now the main consumers are located inside the country, as industrial production inside Turkey has grown significantly in the nineties.
Oil fields
A few oil fields are in the southeast of Turkey, but they barely cover 15% of all the needs of a dynamically developing industrialized country.
The Garzan deposit was discovered onsoutheast of Anatolia, in the province of Batman, near the city of the same name in 1951. Shortly after the discovery of the field, its development began, which means that by 2017 the oil-bearing horizons are close to depletion and daily production does not exceed 1,700 barrels per day.
A slightly larger Raman depositis located in the same province, and despite the fact that it was discovered ten years earlier, its oil production exceeds 4000 barrels a day, and the reliably confirmed aggregate reserves exceed 400 million barrels.
Minerals in Turkey are distributed extremelyunevenly, almost all oil fields are concentrated in the south-eastern provinces of the country, which are more susceptible to the political instability that exists in countries neighboring Turkey.
Metal production
Mining in Turkey has long beentraditions. For example, iron ore deposits were known on the territory of the modern republic at a time when not only did not exist a country with the same name, but even the metallurgical technology was not discovered.
After Europe began to actively use the technology of smelting high-quality iron using coal, the development of deposits in Turkey ceased as unnecessary.
However, in recent times, iron mining is back. First of all, for military needs.
Fortunately for government officials,Iron deposits in Turkey are more widespread than oil deposits, and have much larger reserves of raw materials, which, in combination with large coal deposits, provide significant advantages in steel production.
Lead and Zinc
Relief and minerals of Turkey inextricablyconnected with each other, because a significant part of the country is covered with mountains, which are the most obvious places of occurrence of valuable metal ores.
Deposits are widespread in Anatoliazinc ores, which, besides zinc itself, contain significant impurities of lead and other elements, and sphalerite is the most common ore of this type. There are more than two hundred deposits of this mineral in the country, and the largest mines are located in the western part of the country.
The Turkish Republic managed to occupy a significant part of the international ferrous metallurgy market due to the fact that many developed western countries began to bring dirty production abroad.
However, in addition to its own reserves of iron ore,The enterprises of the Turkish metallurgical industry actively use ferrous scrap brought from abroad. Thus, the country managed to take one of the leading places among importers of scrap metal.
Mercury stock
If most of the deposits of minerals andTurkey and Turkey can cover, even if partially, their needs, but clearly can not occupy a leading position in the international market, then the situation with mercury is fundamentally different.
At the disposal of the Turkish miningThe industry is, according to geologists, up to 25% of the world reserves of this metal, for which there is traditionally high and stable demand in the international market.
Considering what are the features of the relief of Turkey,mineral resources of the country require a special approach to the development of their deposits, as some of them are not in the most accessible places - in the mountainous regions of the country.
