Ajla Imamagić, Mevlida Operta
MINERAL RESOURCES OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF VAREŠ - SITUATION AND PERSPECTIVES
DOI: 10.35666/28310438.2025.6.139
UDC: 553:502(497.6Vareš)
Mineral raw materials are one of the most important resources that had a fundamental meaning for the development of the municipality of Vareš, before, but also today. Mining ores and their processing has been the basic way of doing business for generations. Mining gained great momentum with the construction of blast furnaces at the end of the 19th century, the first furnaces for smelting iron ore in the Balkans. This area is traditionally known for the production of metallic mineral raw materials: iron ore, chromium, lead and zinc with barite. Potential non-metallic mineral raw materials such as: amphibolite, spilite, diabase, gabbro, amphibolite gabbro, limestone, etc., are widely distributed. Among these raw materials, spilites, amphibolites and limestones, suitable for the production of technical-building materials, architectural-decorative stone, and stone wool have been investigated in the most detail.
Various economic branches were developed in this area until 1992, the most important of which were mining and metallurgy. Metallic mineral raw materials were exploited in the Vareš iron ore mine and the Veovača lead, zinc and barite mine. In addition to the exploitation of metallic raw materials, non-metallic raw materials were also exploited, limestone from the Stijene quarry for the needs of the High Kiln and construction industry, and quartz sand from Pobrin Han for the needs of the Foundry. Newer geological and technological research and the execution of mining works as well as laboratory tests represent the continuation of earlier research.
The paper provides an overview of the results of previous investigations (geological, mining, laboratory and technological) of mineral deposits in the municipality of Vareš. In order to find the possibility of using these raw materials, an analysis of the results of previous research on reserves and quality was carried out, and on the basis of the obtained qualitative and quantitative properties, the domains of their possible use were determined. The paper also presents the results of research on mineral raw materials in recent times and points to the problems of environmental protection, based on previous works.
Keywords: mineral raw materials, research, exploitation, qualitative and quantitative characteristics.