Features of the relief and minerals of Turkey

Thrace and Anatolia are two geographically unequal parts 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 energy sources in the production of electricity, fossil fuels still take up more than 86% of 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, Turkey needs a lot of fossil fuels and is dependent on its foreign suppliers, as there are only coal mines among the major energy deposits in Turkey.

In an effort to reduce dependence on foreign natural gas, the 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 fossil fuels 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 built in which people began to mine copper and iron.

Today, according to the level of mining, Turkey is ranked twenty-eighth in the world, and in terms of the amount of mineral raw materials, the tenth. Most of the minerals mined on the territory of the country are used and processed here.

The oldest metal mining sites are in Central Anatolia and in the east of the country, in the foothills of the Taurus, where copper is extracted from the ll millennium BC. E. Other minerals of 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

First, it is necessary to determine the main areas of 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 deep 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 and the 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 the raw materials went for export, now the main consumers are inside the country, since 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 in the southeast of Anatolia, in the province of Batman, not far from the city of the same name in 1951. Soon after the discovery of the deposit, its development also began, which means that by 2017 the oil-bearing horizons are close to depletion and the daily production does not exceed 1,700 barrels per day.

The slightly larger Raman field is 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 extremely unevenly distributed, almost all oil fields are concentrated in the south-eastern provinces of the country, which are more exposed to political instability existing in neighboring countries.

Metal production

Extraction of minerals in Turkey has a long tradition. For example, iron ore deposits were known on the territory of the modern republic at a time when not only the country with such a name did not exist, but metallurgical technology was not even discovered.

After Europe began to actively use the technology of smelting high-quality iron using coal, development of deposits in Turkey stopped as unnecessary.

However, in recent times , iron extraction has returned. First of all, for military needs.

Fortunately for state officials, iron deposits in Turkey are more widespread than oil ones, and have much more raw material reserves, which, combined with large coal deposits, gives significant advantages in the production of steel.

Lead and zinc

The relief and mineral resources of Turkey are inextricably linked 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.

In Anatolia, there are widespread deposits of zinc ores, which, in addition to zinc itself, contain significant impurities of lead and other elements, and the most common ore of this type is sphalerite. The deposits of this mineral in the country number more than two hundred, 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 market of ferrous metallurgy due to the fact that many developed western countries began to export dirty products abroad.

However, in addition to its own reserves of iron ore, the enterprises of the Turkish metallurgical industry actively use scrap of ferrous metals brought from abroad. Thus, the country managed to occupy one of the leading places among scrap importers.

Mercury Stock

If most of the deposits of minerals and hydrocarbons, Turkey can cover, even partially, its needs, but clearly can not occupy a leading position in the international market, then with the mercury the situation is fundamentally different.

At the disposal of the Turkish mining industry is, according to geologists, up to 25% of the world's reserves of this metal, for which there is a traditionally high and stable demand in the international market.

Given the specific features of the relief of Turkey, the minerals of the countries 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.