Assessment of the resource potential of construction sand deposits in the territory adjacent to the city of Voronezh

Abstract

Introduction: in the territory of the Voronezh agglomeration there is a shortage of medium and coarse natural construction sands in unenriched form, which are used to prepare high-grade concrete or to fill the working base of highways. Based on the collected data, the most promising areas of the mineral in its natural form were identified, and the possibility of enriching fine and very fine sands was analyzed;

Methodology: the materials of prospecting and exploration works and engineering-geological surveys conducted by Akma-Universal LLC were used. Based on the sample (3254 samples), the fineness modulus of sands was calculated and analyzed, and graphs of its distribution for each type of deposits were constructed. In parallel, an analysis of the possibility of enriching sands to medium and large ones was conducted;

Results and discussion: construction sand is mined at deposits developing fluvioglacial and alluvial Neopleistocene deposits. For sands of these units, the probability distribution densities of MK are in the range from 1 to 2. The possibility of enriching the raw material by successive removal of small fractions has been estimated. The optimal source of unenriched sand is Aptian sands, characterized by medium and large fineness modulus, which corresponds to the required parameters without additional processing;

Conclusion: the study showed that within the Voronezh agglomeration, the sands of most of the developed deposits are characterized by low quality of raw materials - according to MK, very fine and fine. Sands that belong to the category of medium and large can be obtained by washing small fractions or using Aptian sand of the Lower Cretaceous.