(Micro)palaeontology has proved of use in mineral exploration and exploitation (Hart, in Jenkins, 1993; Jones, 1996; Robbins & Burden, in Jansonius & MacGregor, 1996; Jones, 2006). Case studies of applications in mineral exploration and exploitation are given in Sections 6.1 and 6.2, respectively.

Readers interested in further details of mineral exploration and exploitation, and its environmental impact, are referred to Evans (1997), Spitz and Trudinger (2009), and Botkin and Keller (2010).

APPLICATION AND CASE STUDY IN MINERAL EXPLORATION

La Troya mine, Spain

Materials and methods

The study was undertaken in and around the Early Cretaceous, Barremian???Aptian rudist-reef-hosted lead???zinc ore-body of the La Troya mine in the Basco-Cantabrian basin in the Basque country of Spain (Jones, 2006). The primary objective was to collect and analyse samples from the site of the ore-body itself and from ??? coeval ??? laterally equivalent sites varying distances away. This was to test the hypothesis that micropalaeontological assemblages from sites of ore-body deposition would be characterised by environmental stress, whereas those from laterally equivalent sites would not, enabling an ???environmental stress gradient???, or, in three dimensions, a ???halo???, to be defined, the likes of which might serve as pointers to the locations of hitherto undiscovered ore-bodies elsewhere (Fig. 6.1). The secondary objective was to validate the established ore-body depositional model, specifically, to confirm the suspected syngenetic rather than epigenetic origin using micropalaeontological (palynological) indications indications of thermal maturity above and below.