Developing an Environmental Monitoring Concept for Mining at the Fen Complex

A broad team of researchers at NORCE are engaged to develop a concept for environmental monitoring related to future mining operations. The assignment is part of Saga Rare Earths’ preparations for the planned extraction of resources from the Fen Complex in Telemark.

– The goal is to make extraction as efficient and sustainable as possible, while preventing and minimizing environmental impacts. This is both tremendously exciting and highly important for Norway, says Hege Indresand.

On behalf of NORCE, she leads one of four work packages in REEUNiTe (Rare Earth Elements – UNlocking the Green Transition). Other participants in the NOK 140 million project, which is supported by The Research Council of Norway, Innovation Norway, and SIVA through the Green Platform programme, include NTNU, Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, Future Materials Norwegian Catapult Centre, and a number of industrial partners.

The project owner is Saga Rare Earths, one of the companies holding rights to extract rare earth elements and thorium from the Fen Complex. Over the next two years, NORCE will work closely with the company’s CEO, Johannes Nævdal.

– The project brings together an exciting group of people who will tackle some major challenges. I strongly believe in the combination of industry and academia to develop solutions that enable efficient mining while maintaining a strong environmental focus, says Nævdal.

NORCE has assembled an unusually broad multidisciplinary team of researchers specializing in environmental monitoring, data analysis, modelling, and social sciences.

– We are entirely dependent on expertise from many different disciplines. This is probably the broadest team we have ever brought together at NORCE, but it is necessary. It is especially rewarding to be involved at such an early stage of the process, when our knowledge can influence technology choices, says Indresand.

It has long been known that the Fen Complex, located in the municipality of Nome, contains significant deposits of rare minerals that are essential to technologies enabling the green transition. These minerals originate from a volcano that was active in the region approximately 580 million years ago.

Mining operations at the Fen Complex are not expected to begin for another five to ten years at the earliest. Preparatory work, however, is already well underway, and more than ten kilometres of drill core samples have been extracted to map the resources hidden beneath the surface.

– A public consultation conducted in 2025 showed that local communities around the Fen Complex are particularly concerned about natural values, outdoor recreation, noise, dust, and traffic. These are precisely the kinds of issues our work package is focused on, says Indresand.