The Synnyr massif

In 1964-1965 Buryatgeology (A.S. Pak and others) and the Kola Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences conducted geological surveys at a scale of 1: 25 000 on the most prospecting sites and also apatite and rare-metal mineralization exploration, which did not lead to any significant results. At the same time, thanks to the A.P. Karpinsky Russian Geological Research Institute case studies (A.Ya.Zhidkov), unique ultra-potassium syenites (called synnyrites) were discovered and the areas of their maximum distribution were described. In the seventies, at the initiative of A.Ya. Zhidkov studies to assess the prospective possibility of processing synnyrites as a complex potash-alumina raw material began and were conducted by the Institute of Chemistry of Solids and Mineral Resources (Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences) , the Russian National Aluminum-Magnesium Institute, Siberian Research Institute of Geology, Geophysics and Mineral Resources. From 1979 to 1986 during the North Baikal expedition of the production geological association “Buryatgeologiya” (A.A. Ushakov and others) prospecting and evaluation works on the Synnyr massif within the Kalyumnoe site were carried out. They allowed outlining the main ore bodies of the synnyrites and determining the inferred resources of the deposit. At the same time, a detailed study of the geology and material composition of ultra-potassium rocks was carried out by G.V. Andreev in 1981, L.I. Panina in 1981 and 1983, A.Ya. Zhidkov and S.A. Smyslov in 1982, 1985 and 1988. Then, unfortunately, due to a general reduction of allocations for geological exploration, in the late 80s almost all research in this field was stopped. The resumption of the synnyrites study became possible only after three decades.