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DEXPLORE represents a collaborative effort to advance deep-land mineral exploration, promote domestic and sustainable sourcing of critical raw materials, and support Europe’s open strategic autonomy towards carbon neutrality.

The EU’s domestic supply of primary Critical and Strategic Raw Materials (CRM and SRM, respectively)—including basic metals, industrial minerals, and aggregates—accounts for less than 3% of many key commodities.

This creates a significant supply risk, as Europe depends on third countries for the CRM and SRM required for the green transition.

It is then an urgent need to properly detect mineral deposits in Europe, including both CRM and SRM, following sustainable and cost-efficient practices and increasing exploration projects across Europe, to later continue strengthening the strategic alliances in terms of key mineral supply, extrapolating and scaling technology, practices and procedures. 

WHAT

DEXPLORE aims to reduce Europe’s reliance on third countries for CRM and SRM supply.

During the DEXPLORE project, the consortium is going to develop an advanced surface-to-subsurface exploration package including innovative techniques, such as geochemical and optical methods, mineral UAV-assisted detector, Earth Observation tools, and deep-land geophysics capable of exploring up to 600 meters deep.

With three pilot zones in Spain and Estonia, DEXPLORE seeks to create updated ore models and an extended reality (XR) platform that integrates geological, remote sensing, and geophysical data. This will enhance decision-making, raise public awareness about CRMs’ role in the green transition, and support sustainable resource sourcing.

WHY

The new “environmental technologies,” such as electric vehicles, batteries, and wind turbines—essential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieve the EU goal to be climate-neutral by 2050 —will require over 400% more CRM and SRM by 2050 compared to today.

To achieve European resource security, actions must be taken to diversify supply from primary and secondary CRM and SRM sources and enhance resource independence, efficiency, and circularity, including sustainable product design. However, despite advances in exploration technology, the discovery rate of ore deposits continues to decline, while the supply from shallow deposits is nearing depletion. Under these circumstances, new ore models based on sophisticated deep-land exploration techniques, analysis, and interpretation, are becoming increasingly important.

WHO

DEXPLORE brings together

Partners

Beneficiaries

Affiliated entities

European countries

Spain, Greece, Estonia, and Italy

Each partner contributes top-notch expertise in their field, playing a distinct role in the project, which reflects its multidisciplinary nature

ISMC

Furthermore, to ensure the replicability and scalability of DEXPLORE’s results, an Advisory Board (AB) will be enhanced with members from the EU’s strategic partnerships for a resilient and sustainable supply of raw materials, involving both EU and non-EU stakeholders.

ADDED VALUE

Improve the EU knowledge

about potential on hosting deep-land critical and strategic materials

Reduce dependency

on CRM and SRM supply from non-EU countries while boosting the deals with strategic countries adhered to the Strategic Partnership

Increase the awareness

of the community and the citizens about the importance of the CRM and SRM for reaching the green transition as well as the criticality on counting on domestic supply of these materials