Mineral Prospectivity Mapping for energy critical elements in Europe: the Cell Based Association approach

Summary Lithium, cobalt and natural graphite are essential for energy storage technologies. Their demand is expected to surge with the increasing electrification in the transport sector. As they are all produced outside Europe, their supply for the European industry is potentially a threat. To address this, the FRAME project has produced prospectivity maps for Li, Co and Gr, to identify high potential mineral areas in Europe. They were calculated with the Cell Based Association (CBA) method, developed to better manage uncertainties related to cartographic data, often significant at continental scale. The base principle is to identify the associations of evidential features in the cells of a regular grid. Several techniques for scoring the favourability of the cells were tested. A prospectivity map was then calculated for each commodity (Co, Li and Gr) with the 1:1.5 million geological map of Europe, a regular grid of 10 by 10 km cells covering the whole Europe and the most performant scoring technique. These maps highlights favourable areas for the discovery of new energy critical elements deposits in Europe, and are valuable outputs of the FRAME project that help assessing highly prospective areas where mineral exploration should be focused in the coming years.