Christian Burlet

• Geologist at Institute of Natural Sciences

Meeting the growing demand for Critical Raw Materials (CRM) is one of the greatest challenges for the next decades in Europe and worldwide. In this context, research and development are required regarding resource availability, multi-scale CRM identification and characterisation, and environmental impact of mining and processing CRM. Flexible, rapi...

Spodumene, the main lithium-bearing mineral of the Musha-Ntunga LCT-type pegmatite deposit in Rwanda displays a variety of textures. Two distinct groups are identified based on grain size, habit, textural intergrowth features, optical properties and associated mineral assemblages. Contrary to the uniform euhedral primary group 1 spodumene with thin...

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) is a fast in-situ analytical technique based on spectroscopic analysis of atomic emission in laser-induced plasmas. Geochemical mapping at macroscopic scale using LIBS was applied to a decimetric Zn-Pb ore sample from east Belgium, which consists of alternating sphalerite and galena bands. A range of elem...

Spring water geochemistry is applied here to evaluate the geothermal potential in Rhenohercynian fold and thrust belt around the deepest borehole in Belgium (Havelange borehole: 5648 m MD). Fifty springs and (few) wells around Havelange borehole were chosen according to a multicriteria approach including the hydrothermal source of “Chaudfontaine” (...

ABSTRACT: The Balkan Peninsula represents one of the most important human pathways into and out of Europe during the Pleistocene. Mishin Kamik cave, located in the karst region of Western Stara Planina, has a rich faunal content and shows promising features indicating a human occupation site with the discovery of potential bone artefacts and an int...

The Balkan Peninsula represents one of the most important human pathways into and out of Europe during the Pleistocene. Mishin Kamik cave, located in the karst region of Western Stara Planina, has a rich faunal content and shows promising features indicating a human occupation site with the discovery of potential bone artefacts and an intriguing ac...

The Horizon 2020 ROBOMINERS project (Grant No. 820971) is developing a modular robot miner prototype following a bio-inspired design, capable of operating, navigating and performing selective mining in a flooded underground environment. The project has been set up with the long-term strategic objective to facilitate EU access to mineral raw materia...

A high-precision and low-cost temperature and humidity logging device, called Niphargus and originally intended for environmental monitoring in caves, was developed at the Geological Survey of Belgium (Burlet et al., 2015). The Niphargus is designed as a standalone logger, with data to be retrieved manually whenever needed. This allows for a very s...

Societies rely on a secure, responsible and affordable supply of resources to meet their basic needs, in order to live life in a safe and healthy environment. The natural resources from the subsurface, i.e. groundwater, geo-energy and raw materials, represent essential elements in this provision. Safety from catastrophic events, such as those linke...

Natural manganese oxides characterization represents a challenge due to the broad variety of their structures and geochemical compositions along with a frequent poor crystallinity. This characterization requires the ability to conduct both a phase separation and a phase association operation. In this paper, the Raman spectra acquired on a selection...

COMPLEMENTARY DATING RESULTS FROM THE BRUNIQUEL CAVE (TARN-ET-GARONNE, FRANCE). The Bruniquel Cave contains two nearly annular structures, a large one and a smaller one, and four smaller accumulation structures, in total made of 420 pieces of broken stalagmites and located at approximately 300 meters from the entrance. The construction of these str...

Présentation : La croissance des stalagmites dans les grottes est intimement liée aux conditions climatiques extérieures. Pour cela, l'étude à haute résolution des signaux chimiques contenus dans leur structure interne (lamines) permet de reconstituer les variations des paramètres climatiques et donc de la saisonnalité du climat actuel et passé. Ce...

Robotic, stand-off microscale characterization of the water content on the surfaces of the Martian moons is a fundamental investigation that enables all types of ISRU and human exploration activities. We have developed an ultracompact laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument that provides rapid, fine-scale chemistry, water abundance,...

Very little is known about Neanderthal cultures(1), particularly early ones. Other than lithic implements and exceptional bone tools(2), very few artefacts have been preserved. While those that do remain include red and black pigments(3) and burial sites(4), these indications of modernity are extremely sparse and few have been precisely dated, thus...

Heterogenite is commonly referred in mineralogy literature as a cobalt oxy-hydroxide CoO(OH). However, detailed analysis of Raman and infrared spectra acquired on particularly well-crystallized natural samples of heterogenite suggests that the mineral can be characterized by a delafossite-type structure, with a general chemical formula ABO2. Indeed...

In this study, Raman microspectroscopy is applied to investigate two manganese oxide phases: lithiophorite [(Al,Li)Mn4+O2(OH)2] and asbolane [(Ni,Co)xMn4+(O,OH)4·nH2O], along with their intermediates (‘asbolane–lithiophorite intermediates’: ALI). These oxides typically incorporate variable concentrations of Co, Ni, Cu and Li. They represent a group...

A temperature logger, named “Niphargus”, was developed at the Geological Survey of Belgium to monitor temperature of local natural processes. It has a sensitivity of the order of a few hundredths of degrees on temperature variability in open air, caves, soils and river environment. The newly developed instrument uses a state-of-the-art band-gap sil...

A new type of untethered balloon based mapping platform allows affordable remote sensing applications from higher altitudes and with a greater range and payload capacity than common motorized UAV's. The airborne device, called " Stratochip " , is based on a dual helium balloons configuration. At a defined altitude (comprised between 1000 and 30000m...

A new type of untethered balloon based mapping platform allows affordable remote sensing applications from higher altitudes and with a greater range and payload capacity than common motorized UAV's. The airborne device, called " Stratochip " , is based on a dual helium balloons configuration. At a defined altitude (comprised between 1000 and 30000m...

Despite uncontested evidence for fossils belonging to the early hominin genus Australopithecus in East Africa from at least 4.2 million years ago (Ma), and from Chad by 3.5 Ma, thus far there has been no convincing evidence of Australopithecus, Paranthropus or early Homo from the western (Albertine) branch of the Rift Valley. Here we report the dis...

The largest cobalt ore reserves are located in DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of cobalt is observed as black cobaltic oxide minerals: heterogenite [HCoO 2 ] and asbolane [(Ni,Co)2-xMn(O,OH)4.nH2O] which are hardly differentiable since they exhibit similar macroscopic habit and textures. These minerals are frequently observed in similar...

The study areas are located in the Katanga province to the South Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It focuses on the Kolwezi and Tenke-Fungurume mining centers, located in the vicinity of the Basse-Kando reserve. The 3 study areas have faced large scale human induced the fragmentation of land cover. A combination of ancillary...

The largest cobalt ore reserves are located in DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of the cobalt is observed as black cobaltic oxide minerals: heterogenite [HCoO2] and asbolane [(Ni,Co)2-xMn(O,OH) 4.nH2O] which are hardly differentiable since they exhibit similar macroscopic habit and textures. These minerals are frequently observed in simi...

The largest cobalt ore reserves are located in DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of the cobalt is observed as black cobaltic oxide minerals: heterogenite [HCoO2] and asbolane [(Ni,Co)2-xMn(O,OH)4.nH2O] which are hardly differentiable since they exhibit similar macroscopic habit and textures. These minerals are frequently observed in simil...

Natural heterogenite (CoO·OH) samples were studied by Raman microspectroscopy, electronic microprobe and Electronic BackScattered Diffraction (EBSD). Raw samples and polished sections were made from 10 mines covering the Katanga copperbelt (Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of Congo). Four typical Raman responses have been obtained leading to i...

GeoRaman 2010. 9th International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy Applied to the Earth Sciences – Sensu Latu. Sydney 28th June – 2nd July, 2010.