Mineral resources

With rocks and structures from virtually all geologic periods, Europe possesses a wide variety of useful minerals. Some, exploited since the Bronze Age, are depleted; others have been produced and consumed only since the Industrial Revolution. Useful minerals include those that provide energy, ferrous and nonferrous metals and ferroalloys, and those that furnish materials to the chemical and building industries. Europe has a long and commendable prospecting tradition, and mining provides employment in all countries—although for smaller numbers as mechanization is applied. As in the case of North Sea gas and oil, new discoveries are still possible. But in relation to the ever-mounting requirements of its economy, Europe—Russia and Ukraine apart—is heavily dependent on mineral imports.

Coal

Europe commands abundant resources of hard and soft coal, which remains of considerable, if declining, importance as a fuel for the smelting of minerals and as the source of many by-products. Only exceptionally does northern Europe have coal measures of commercial scale, but coal seams are preserved in Hercynian basins throughout the continent, lying diagonally across Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, France (especially in Lorraine), Germany (particularly in North Rhine–Westphalia, Saarland, and Saxony), Poland (Silesia), and Ukraine (the Donets Basin). There are numerous fields, small but often of great locational value. Some, as in southwestern Scotland and southern Belgium, have been worked out or have become uneconomic. Major reserves, encompassing mostly hard deposits of coking, anthracite, and steam coal, lie in the German Ruhr, the United Kingdom, and Upper Silesia. Softer brown coal, or lignite, occurs in Germany and the Chomutov fields of the Czech Republic.

Petroleum and natural gas

Known petroleum and natural gas reserves are inadequate for Europe’s rising requirements. European Russia contains the large Volga-Ural field, while Romania has reserves in the Carpathian and Subcarpathian zones. Norway and the United Kingdom have tapped gas and oil from beneath the North Sea bed. In the late 1980s Romania began extracting oil from the Black Sea. Other undersea petroleum resources may exist in the far northern Atlantic Ocean and in the Aegean Sea.

Nonmetallic deposits

Minerals within the large nonmetallic category are widely available. Clay minerals include fuller’s earth, derived from the decomposition of feldspar and used to cleanse wool and to finish cloth. Kaolinite, of similar origin, is valuable as china clay and occurs in a pure form in southwestern England. Halite (rock salt), important in the chemical industry, occurs widely, much of it being precipitated in such geologically ancient salt lakes as Lake Baskunchak (in Russia’s lower Volga basin). Other salts important for the chemical industry are produced in large quantities in Germany and France. Europe also has substantial sulfur deposits, and the mining of sulfur in beds during the Miocene Epoch (about 23 to 5.3 million years ago) in Sicily gave Italy a virtual monopoly before the opening up of New World deposits in Texas. The carbonate rock dolomite is used as a refractory material, as in lining metal furnaces, and is widespread. Graphite, a crystalline form of carbon used as a lubricant and the basis (with clay) of the “lead” in pencils, is worked in Austria, the Czech Republic, and England. Nitrates, for fertilizers and explosives, are made from the air electrolytically in England, Norway, and Russia, and deposits generating potash and phosphate fertilizers are relatively abundant. The Russian apatite (calcium phosphate) deposits of the Kola Peninsula are substantial, as are the potash deposits at Solikamsk, in the Urals. Corundum, a hard abrasive, occurs widely. Building materials for cement and bricks, as well as stone, are abundant, although only regionally available, depending on geologic structure. Particular building stones—marble from central Italy, granite from Norway and Scotland—have localized sources. Except in the Urals, precious stones are rare; those mountains also contain the chief European deposit of asbestos.

Water resources

The mountainous and upland areas of Europe collect great amounts of surface water, which supply the rivers and lakes; the lowlands, with lower rainfall, thus receive much water from the higher portions of their river basins. In the Mediterranean lands, surface water is minimal in summer—exceptions being northern and northwestern Iberia, which receives ample rain; the North Italian Plain, which has Alpine rivers, lakes, and springs and receives summer rain; and the Apennine zone of Italy, which has rivers fed by snowmelt and rain. In the east, surface water is relatively abundant in Belarus and central and northern Russia, but it decreases to the south and southeast; in the drier regions, however, rivers drain extensive basins, and dams on the Volga and Dnieper have created enormous reservoirs.

The increasing water requirements of thermal power stations and industry and, to a lesser extent, domestic needs make the little-populated and little-industrialized European highlands, which offer surplus water, indispensable to the lowlands. The pollution of water by effluents containing nonoxidizable detergents from urban areas and by those from oil refineries and chemical and metallurgical plants has reached such proportions as to present serious problems and to incur high reclamation costs. Water pollution has been especially severe in the section of the Rhine below Basel, Switz., and in the Ruhr, Lakes Geneva and Garda (Switzerland and Italy, respectively), and many areas in eastern Europe. In reaction to water shortages, water is, as in the Thames and Elbe, recycled many times.

Because the water table is normally not far below the surface in the lowlands, wells and springs are widely available there; underground water supplies (groundwater) that are held particularly in porous rocks are sporadically utilized through the process of pumping. A trend that appears to be growing is to artificially add to supplies of groundwater and thus integrate surface and underground water; much of Sweden’s urban water requirements are thus supplied. The needs of the major European cities and of the industrial regions involve continuing efforts to collect enough water by impounding surface water, by pumping groundwater, and by encouraging the economy, reuse, and reclamation of water.

Biological resources

Some reference to plant, animal, and human resources is needed to complement any discussion of European resources. Reference has already been made above to what remains of Europe’s plant and animal heritage, supplemented as this is by such vigorous developments as the breeding of livestock to specific purposes and the acclimatization of trees and plants of economic value, which have taken place throughout history.

The human resources of Europe, since they result from the efforts applied at an ever-rising technical level, are in some respects inexhaustible. Although the cultivation of soil and the mining and quarrying of metallic minerals were initiated in prehistoric times, the winning of some resources began only in relatively recent times, in response to new needs and technology. The clearing of woodlands for the plow has continued since the early Middle Ages; the cultivation of the steppe lowlands of Ukraine and the lower Danube basin commenced only in the late 18th century. Effective drainage, in which the Dutch have excelled, especially during and after the 17th century, has made use of former marshlands. The large-scale mining of coal and iron ore dates from the Industrial Revolution. Some industries—many of them concerned with the products of the chemical industry and the refining of aluminum—belong to the 20th century, during which electricity was developed as a form of energy and the internal-combustion engine was developed for use on land, at sea, and in the air. In the 20th and 21st centuries, as service industries came to dominate most European economies, the technical skills and intellectual abilities of the continent’s people remained crucial.

Power

Coal, used to drive steam engines and, as coke, in the smelting of metals, was long the predominant European power source. There was very little increase in coal production during the late 20th century, however, as European countries made greater use of other forms of energy. Nevertheless, in the early 21st century coal continued to provide energy to coalfield-based industries and was still important for the production of electricity. Petroleum and natural gas now provide a large share of the energy consumed. Natural gas has replaced coal gas in many parts of Europe, including Russia and the United Kingdom. Fuel oil is widely used by diesel locomotives and electricity-generating stations as well as for space heating. Ireland, which lacks both coal and oil, makes efficient use of abundant peat resources.

Nuclear reactors generate a significant amount of electricity. Nuclear energy is promoted by the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) in the EU countries.

Hydroelectric power has been markedly developed where precipitation and landforms provide good opportunities to dam rivers, as in northern and Alpine Europe and southwestern Russia. Norway, for example, derives almost all of its electric power from this source; Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, and the Balkan countries derive a large fraction.

Geothermal energy—using underground waters heated by volcanic action—is available in Italy and Iceland. Wind power (especially in Germany, Spain, and Denmark) and tidal power (in France, for example) are being harnessed as well.