Precambrian ore deposits of the East European and Siberian Cratons / Докембрийские рудные месторождения Восточно-Европейского и Сибирского кратонов

Precambrian mineral deposits are now becoming more significant in the mineral-raw materials balance for many countries in the world, since the vast majority of ores of iron, titanium, vanadium, gold and uranium, non-metals such as muscovite and phlogopite, and considerable amounts of asbestos and barite are currently being worked from Precambrian deposits. Recently, new types of gold, rare-metal, tungsten, tin, beryllium, rare-earth, radioactive elements, platinoids and manganese ore bodies have been discovered, as well as deposits of unusual geochemical associations such as Ni-U, U-Cu-Au and Pt-Au. The most interesting recent discoveries have been made in Australia, India, South Africa, Canada and Brazil. Statistically, these countries now lead the growth league tables of mineral-raw materials resources, as a direct result of these new deposits being opened in Precambrian complexes. 
This phase occurred earlier in the former Soviet Union - the decade 1930-1940 was a period of intense discovery of Precambrian mineral deposits, and coincided with regional geological investigations of the ancient regions of the country, i.e. the Soviet part of the Baltic Shield, the Ukrainian and Aldan shields, the Baikal-Patom province, etc. (Fig. 1). Due to the work of A. Fersman, A. Polkanov, G. Kholmov, V. Kotulsky and other scientists who worked in the Kola Peninsula and Karelia at that time, almost all the currently-known deposits were discovered- M onchegorsk (Cu-Ni), Olenegorsk and Kostomuksha (Fe), Parandovo and Hautavaara (massive sulphide) and others. In the post-war years, exploration led to the discovery of a number of deposits of raremetal metasomatites, copper-molybdenum-porphyry ores, shungite, ore-beating black shales and others, but these discoveries enlarged only the areas of U, Pt and M o without significantly altering the broad metallogenic profile of the region, as established in the pre-war years. Precambrian deposits continued to be discovered in the Ukraine into the 1950s and 60s, when new types of radioactive, rare-metal and rare-earth deposits were discovered (Perzhan, Zhyoltorechka, etc.) among a variety of metasomatic rocks, altered metamorphic complexes.  <...>