Mineral Resources of Poland is a periodic English-speaking publishing house, elaborated by the Polish Geological Institute – National Research Institute (PGI-NRI) as one of the tasks performed by a state geological survey. The survey supports the central government administration e.g. in terms of domestic resources security and by providing the geological knowledge to the foreign companies that are interested in cooperation with Poland in the area of mineral deposits resources development. It applies not only to stages of deposits prospecting and exploring but also to minerals exploitation.
The current edition of the publication is the 6th one. Similarly to previous editions, it contains the latest available data on a domestic resources base of particular minerals and on output volumes. For selected minerals, there are also graphs with the multi-year data presented. In contrast to previous editions of Mineral Resources of Poland, the current one is much more focused on legal and economic factors – it discusses legal regulations of geological and mining projects, a concession system, the ownership of mineral deposit resources and the geological and mining administration and its responsibilities. Two other important issues underscored in the publication are geological documentation and requirements for candidates seeking a certificate of licensed geologist in Poland. Moreover, it addresses a scope of economic and financial duties (taxes, levies) of the general nature and those based on the Polish Geological and Mining Law. Mineral Resources of Poland also broadly presents geological information sources in Poland together with their use at the geological and mining stages. A separate part is dedicated to a connection between a resources classification system used in Poland and an international classification – United Nations Framework Classification for Resources (UNFC Update 2019), which is becoming more widely common in the world.
It should be emphasized that the latest edition of Mineral Resources of Poland not only is based on data covering the already recognized deposits, for which geological documentations were elaborated (on a basis of The balance of mineral deposits resources in Poland), but also, just as importantly, contains the results of mineral deposits prospective according to the latest edition of The balance of prospective mineral raw materials resources of Poland (edition 2020). Moreover, in the 6th edition of Mineral Resources of Poland (Chapter III), information was enlarged by the status of work of the state geological survey in the area of circular economy in the minerals sector. In synthetic terms, there were results of such work presented – covering almost 1,500 of the anthropogenic mining objects which, in couple of minerals areas, may become a secondary source and a valuable addition to the resources base of primary sources. For the first time, there was discussed information on the already documented mineral deposits which may be used for production of critical raw materials (according to the Polish list of critical raw materials, slightly different from the European Union list). In the publication, there was also a short chapter devoted to the major geological features of Poland placed.