Vasco Valadares

How rich is Picota in feldspar, and will it be “easy” to extract?

Vasco Valadares: Picota’s rocks, like most areas in the Monchique Complex, are feldspar rich at the outcropping level. There is no reason to believe that the amount of feldspar may diminish towards higher depths; so (potentially) there is a large amount of feldspar present in that area. Regarding the extraction, from the studies I performed during my thesis, I know that some other minerals are present as inclusions inside the feldspar crystals and this may well lead to a more elaborate, complicated and more expensive purification process of the end product.

As an expert who has worked this area, do you think mining for feldspar would bring any real benefits to the community, or simply destroy it?

Society always benefits from the exploration of natural resources as it creates products which can then be marketed and used by other industries. Job creation is also an important aspect, and a positive impact on local communities. However, all these aspects are very dependent on how the project is defined - for example a company could bring workers from other regions and the job creation for the local community would then be “bypassed”. Furthermore, if the environmental impact affects air and water quality and introduces noise to otherwise wild and quiet areas, this could also lead to people and businesses leaving the areas and thus impact in a negative way on the local community.

How devastating would mining for feldspar be to the rural tranquility of life in Monchique, and particularly on Picota hillside?

Mining, like most of your modern activities, causes an impact on the surrounding environment. However we benefit from it - that is why we always should try to achieve a compromise between environmental impact and the exploration of the resources that our society needs. This compromise should be able to minimize the negative impacts on the environment as a whole (people, fauna and flora, quality of air and water, noise, …) and also have a plan defined to recover the affected area after the lifetime of the exploration. If proper actions are taken, the effects on the surroundings can be greatly decreased during and after exploration. These measures have to be submitted to the proper authorities when a proposal for exploration is filed.

Can you think of other areas in Portugal where feldspar may be just as abundant – and where mining for it already exists?

There are many other places in Portugal where feldspar is currently being explored. These are located mainly in the north of Portugal because it is there that most of the feldspar bearing rocks outcrop.

Are there any other minerals on Picota that may be of interest to mining companies?

Geologically, the rocks of Monchique define a special igneous intrusive alkaline massif, one of the largest of its kind. Despite that, the minerals that are present are not of much interest to the mining industry either because the Elements they possess are more easily extracted from other locations or because the minerals in question are present in small amounts.