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RESEARCH

General background

Mineral resources, like energy resources, offer us the opportunity to study a diverse range of physical and chemical mechanisms involved in the intensive transfer of matter and heat. Our research combines many Earth Science sub-disciplines, including physical geology, hydromechanics, geochemistry, mineralogy, petrophysics, cristallochemistry and applied mathematics. These concentrations of material are often measured directly, but the deposits also provide an abundance of high-quality samples that allow us to make spatial descriptions over scales ranging from micrometres to kilometres. Increasing mineral and energy demands, strongly linked to population growth, are raising new issues in the field of Earth sciences and bringing about new technological objectives :

  • In metallogeny : rare metals as well as critical metals for the photovoltaic and wind-energy sectors.
  • In metallurgy : the processing and marketing of resources and residues, underground residue storage, environmentally-green mines and post-mining activities.
  • In carbon resources : unconventional deposits (tight and ultra-tight gas, deep and ultra-deep reservoirs, heavy oils), underground storage of fossil fuels and acidic gases, monitoring of environmental pollutants (in aquifers, soils and the atmosphere).

In order to respond to these different, highly strategic, objectives, a new "GeoRessources" laboratory was created, which brought together Nancy’s most important players in the field of Applied Geology from Sections 35, 36 and 60 of CNU and Sections 18 and 30 of CNRS. GeoRessources is hosted by the University of Lorraine, and has three supervising institutions : the University of Lorraine, INSU CNRS and CREGU, and a secondary attachment to INSIS CNRS. GeoRessources employs a total of 180 personnel (including part-time) of which more than 100 are permanent members of staff (44 ITA/IATOS, 60 EC/C).

Research / training / partnerships

The UMR GeoRessources research activities are based around three main research themes - Geomodelling, Raw Materials, and Geosystems. The “Geomodels” theme is driven by two teams, “Geological and Geochemical Models” and “Multi-Scale Hydro-Geomechanics”; the Raw Materials theme is composed of three teams, “Carbon Resources”, “Mineral Resources” and “Treatment of Resources and Residues”; and the “GeoSystems” theme, related to the anthropogenic use of the geological environment, consists of two teams, “Geological Storage and Geothermal Energy” and “GeoMaterials, Structures and Risks”.

UMR GeoRessources is a member of OSU OTELo, Carnot Institute ICEEL and Labex  Resources 21. Its members of staff include 20 ENSG research-professors, 10 EMN research-professors, 17 research-professors from the Geosciences department and 3 research-professors associated with three other disciplines.

UMR GeoRessources is based on two transfer centres, ASGA and CREGU, which facilitate its relationships with industrial partners. AREVA and TOTAL are the two CREGU shareholders. GeoRessources has also forged a number of other industrial partnerships through its involvement in the GOCAD consortium and the STEVAL project. GeoRessources is developing strong and specialized partnerships with the so-called EPIC institutes (BRGM, INERIS, ANDRA, IFPen, IFREMER), some of which, such as the Lorraine INERIS sub-division, are already hosted by GeoRessources.