iCRAG Funded Investigator Dr Pat Meere from the UCC School of BEES, will lead a €4 million European-wide project aimed at sourcing new mineral deposits to assist the European Union’s climate objectives and targets in the mining of materials within the EU under the HORIZON Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Networks programme.
Studying the movement and interaction of aqueous fluids with rocks in the Earth’s upper crust is fundamental for our understanding of the genesis of critical mineral deposits and of geothermal energy fluid flow systems. With the rapidly increasing global demand for raw materials, the ForMovFluid project will assist the EU in addressing significant challenges regarding its dependencies on access to raw materials.
ForMovFluid includes ten European partners and proposes to adopt new and existing laboratory and field techniques in geoscience sub-disciplines to address key knowledge gaps related to fluid flow drivers, pathways, and fluid/rock reactions. The project will also further our understanding of the movement and physio/chemical interaction of aqueous fluids with rocks in a variety of tectonic settings in the Earth’s upper crust, and to establish a long-term pan-sector research network that will go on to contribute to European geofluid research and to underpin Europe’s raw material and geothermal sectors.
Dr Pat Meere, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at UCC, and coordinator of the ForMovFluid project said: "If Europe is to successfully meet its climate objectives sourcing new mineral deposits will be a key priority. The new EU Critical Raw Materials Act includes the ambitious target that 10% of the Union’s consumption of raw materials should be mined within the EU. The movement and interaction of aqueous fluids with rocks in the Earth’s crust fundamentally underlies several key geological processes including critical raw material mineralisation and geothermal fluid systems."
The ForMovFluid project has been awarded funding under the HORIZON MCSA Doctoral Networks programme. The programme implements doctoral programmes through partnerships of organisations from different sectors across Europe, to train highly skilled doctoral students.
For more on the MSCA Doctoral Networks programme visit the MSCA Doctoral Networks website.
