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 i.a. in terms of the 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 resources deposits development. It applies not only to the stages of deposits prospecting and exploring but also to the mineral raw materials exploitation.
The current edition of the publication is the 6th one. Similarly to the previous editions it contains the latest available data on a domestic resources base of particular raw materials and the output volume. For selected raw materials 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, the concession system, ownership of mineral resource deposits 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 the 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 broadly presents also geological information sources in Poland together with their use at the geological and mining stages. The separate part is dedicated to the connection between the domestic resources classification system used in Poland and the 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 the data covering the already recognized deposits, for which geological documentations were elaborated (on the basis of The balance of mineral resources deposits in Poland), but also, just as importantly, contains the results of raw materials 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) the information was enlarged by the status of work of the state geological survey in the area of circular economy in the raw materials sector. In synthetic terms, there were results of such work presented – covering almost 1,500 of the anthropogenic mining objects which, in couple of raw materials areas, may become the secondary source and a valuable addition to the resources base of primary sources. For the first time there was discussed the information on the already documented raw materials deposits which may be used for the 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.