French Geologist Unearths Afghanistan's Hidden Treasures

Before Afghanistan's civil war started a French geologist, Abbot de Lapparent , collected massive data on the country’s mining resources. His findings, recently rediscovered, could unlock huge wealth in the troubled nation. May be country’s political instability rendered impossible serious ground explorations but knowledge had never come under light before.

After being a priest, and having already explored the Sahara, de Lapparent settled in Afghanistan in 1971. On his first trip, he discovered the Hajigak iron deposit in the mountains west of Kabul. Hajigak iron deposit holds more than two billion tons of metal. The discovery opened the doors to Afghan authorities, who facilitated further French geological missions. In 1973, a permanent office was opened in Kabul. The Soviet invasion in 1979 stopped everything, and the notebooks, samples, topographic and geological maps all ended up in the IGAL archives.
Professor Atiq Sediqi, director of the Afghan geological service, has launched a project to make the most of the rediscovered data. He says “The maps of the French missions are going to be digitized to create a data base that aggregates knowledge available from other countries."