Unearth the Fun: A GeoGuessr-Style Mining Advent Calendar in Satellite Timelapse (2025)

What is MineGuessr?

MineGuessr is a GeoGuessr-style mining game designed for the raw materials industry.

Instead of street-level images, we use satellite imagery of open-pit and underground mine sites across Sweden, Finland, Norway, Greenland and other EU countries. Each timelapse condenses decades of development – pits deepening, waste rock dumps expanding, tailings facilities evolving and new infrastructure appearing – into a 10–15 second mining satellite timelapse.

Our goal is to make raw materials education more visual and accessible, while still speaking the language of mining professionals, investors and policymakers. MineGuessr shows, very concretely, how energy transition raw materials are produced and how long-life assets reshape landscapes over time.

How the MineGuessr mining advent calendar works

From 1 to 24 December, we open one “door” per day in our mining advent calendar:

1. Watch the daily timelapse
   • A short satellite timelapse of a mine (1984–2022), typically 10–15 seconds.
   • Posted as a native video on LinkedIn and embedded on the corresponding mine page under Insights.
2. Guess the mine
   • We invite you to guess the mine, the country and the main commodity.
   • You don’t need to know every pit by name to participate – educated guesses (e.g. “Nordic iron ore”) are welcome.
3. Reveal and learn
   • The next day, we reveal the answer on LinkedIn and on the mine’s insight page.
   • Each page provides a concise, professional overview of the asset, including:
     1. Deposit type and key geology
     2. Operational history and what the timelapse shows
     3. The mine’s role in the raw materials value chain and the energy transition
4. Play across channels
   • LinkedIn – the daily GeoGuessr-style mine guessing game and discussion.
   • Our website – the authoritative write-up for each mine, with technical and strategic context.
   • Interactive calendar – a single view of all 24 mines and timelapse “doors”.

Play along on LinkedIn

Each day in December, we publish the MineGuessr video on our Gosselin Mining LinkedIn page with a simple challenge:

“Where is this mine, and what does it produce?”

You can:

• Comment with your guess,
• See how others interpret the satellite imagery of mines,
• Follow up the next day when we reveal the answer and link to the detailed write-up.

Search for “MineGuessr” and “Gosselin Mining” on LinkedIn and join the conversation.

Why satellite imagery of mines matters

For mining engineers and geologists, mine plans, sections and block models are familiar tools. For wider society, those visuals can be abstract. Mining satellite timelapse bridges that gap.

Through MineGuessr, you can clearly see:

• The life-of-mine evolution of open pits, underground access, waste rock and tailings
• How cut-off grade decisions, throughput targets and mine expansions translate into land use over decades
• How long-life operations support the supply of energy transition raw materials such as copper, iron ore, chromite, phosphate, graphite, gold and industrial minerals

Used in the right way, satellite imagery of mines is a powerful tool for:

• Stakeholder dialogue and permitting discussions
• ESG communication and understanding surface footprint
• Raw materials education at the interface of geology, mining and policy

MineGuessr is our way of making that perspective accessible to a broader audience – while still grounded in real projects, real deposits and real data.

Explore all 24 mines in the 2025 mining advent calendar

Below you’ll find all 24 MineGuessr doors for 2025. Each link leads to a dedicated insight page for that mine, with the timelapse video, key facts and a short professional commentary.

Days 1-24

• Day 1 - Aitik (Sweden, copper-gold open pit)
  A large, low-grade copper operation south of Gällivare
  👉 Open Door 1 - Aitik
• Day 2 - Björkdal (Sweden, gold)
  Gold mine near Skellefteå, combining open-pit and underground mining.
  👉 Open Door 2 - Björkdal
• Day 3 - Kemi (Finland, chrome)
  Chrome mine in northern Finland, Europe’s only chromite operation.
  👉 Open Door 3 - Kemi
• Day 4 - Ørtfjell (Norway, iron ore)
  Iron ore mine in Norway’s Dunderland Valley, evolving from large open pits to underground mining.
  👉 Open Door 4 - Ørtfjell
• Day 5 - Trimouns (France, talc)
  World’s largest working talc quarry high in the French Pyrenees above Luzenac.
  👉 Open Door 5 - Trimouns
• Day 6 - Skouries (Greece, copper-gold porphyry)
  High-grade copper–gold porphyry project in the forests of Halkidiki, still under construction.
  👉 Open Door 6 - Skouries
• Day 7 - Las Cruces (Spain, copper)
  High-grade hydromet copper mine in the Iberian Pyrite Belt north-west of Seville.
  👉 Open Door 7 - Las Cruces
• Day 8 - Assarel–Medet (Bulgaria, copper)
  Twin porphyry copper open pits in the Panagyurishte district, from Europe’s former largest open-pit copper mine at Medet to today’s modern Assarel operation.
  👉 Open Door 8 - Assarel–Medet
• Day 9 - Glomel (France, andalusite)
  World-class andalusite open-pit quarry in Brittany’s Montagnes Noires, supplying refractory minerals for Europe’s steel, foundry, cement and glass industries.
  👉 Open Door 9 - Glomel
• Day 10 - Parnassos–Ghiona (Greece, bauxite)
  Karst-type bauxite mines in the Parnassos–Ghiona mountains, a historic alumina feedstock district supplying Greece’s aluminium industry.
  👉 Open Door 10 - Parnassos–Ghiona
• Day 11 - Kittilä (Finland, gold)
  Europe’s largest primary gold mine at the Suurikuusikko orogenic gold deposit north of the Arctic Circle.
  👉 Open Door 11 - Kittilä
• Day 12 - Oltenia Energy Complex (Romania, lignite)
  Cluster of large open-pit lignite mines and mine-mouth power plants in Gorj County, now at the centre of Romania’s coal phase-out and just transition plans.
  👉 Open Door 12 - Oltenia Energy Complex
• Day 13 - Cornwall china clay (UK)
  Historic Imerys china clay pits near St Austell, where bright white kaolin benches and tips reshape “Clay Country” over decades of mining and restoration.
  👉 Open Door 13 - Cornwall china clay
• Day 14 - Aggeria–Agia Irini (Greece, bentonite)
  Overlapping bentonite open pits on the volcanic island of Milos, anchoring one of Europe’s key industrial minerals districts.
  👉 Open Door 14 - Aggeria–Agia Irini
• Day 15 - Skouriotissa (Cyprus, copper & hydromet)
  Ancient copper mining district in the Troodos ophiolite, now a hydrometallurgical hub processing copper, gold and battery-metal feed.
  👉 Open Door 15 - Skouriotissa
• Day 16 - Tunstead (UK, limestone & cement)
  The UK’s largest limestone quarry near Buxton, feeding an integrated lime and cement works with long-term restoration and biodiversity plans.
  👉 Open Door 16 - Tunstead
• Day 17 - Narva (Estonia, oil shale)
  Large open-pit oil shale mine in Ida-Viru County, supplying the Narva power plants and reshaping the landscape with strip mining and reclamation.
  👉 Open Door 17 - Narva
• Day 18 - Sydvaranger (Norway, iron ore)
  Arctic banded iron formation at Bjørnevatn near Kirkenes, evolving toward DR-grade magnetite for Europe’s green steel transition.
  👉 Open Door 18 - Sydvaranger
• Day 19 - Kevitsa (Finland, nickel–copper–PGE)
  Multimetal open-pit mine in Finnish Lapland, combining Ni–Cu–PGE production with trolley-assisted haulage for lower-emission mining.
  👉 Open Door 19 - Kevitsa
• Day 20 - Styrian Erzberg (Austria, iron ore)
  Terraced “pyramid” open-pit iron ore mine at Eisenerz, turning 12 Mt of rock into ~3 Mt of ore each year for Austria’s steel industry.
  👉 Open Door 20 - Styrian Erzberg
• Day 21 - Minas de Alquife (Spain, iron ore)
  Europe’s largest open-pit iron ore mine in Granada, restarting in 2020 after two decades of closure to supply high-grade ore to European steelmakers.
  👉 Open Door 21 - Minas de Alquife
• Day 22 - Siilinjärvi (Finland, phosphate)
  EU’s only operating phosphate mine in central Finland, mining an Archean carbonatite for fertiliser-grade apatite and creating distinctive pale tailings and phosphogypsum stacks.
  👉 Open Door 22 - Siilinjärvi
• Day 23 - Tellnes (Norway, ilmenite/titanium)
  World-class ilmenite open pit in the Rogaland Anorthosite Province, supplying TiO₂ pigment feedstock from one of Europe’s largest titanium deposits.
  👉 Open Door 23 - Tellnes
• Day 24 - Elatsite (Bulgaria, copper–gold porphyry)
  High-altitude porphyry copper–gold open pit in Bulgaria’s Srednogorie zone, with ore conveyed under the Balkan Mountains to a separate flotation–tailings complex.
  👉 Open Door 24 - Elatsite

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About Gosselin Mining

Gosselin Mining is an independent geology and mining engineering consulting firm based in Sweden, working with clients across the Nordic region, Europe and beyond. We support mining and exploration companies, investors and public institutions with:

• Project evaluation and feasibility studies
• Mine planning and optimization
• Technical due diligence and NI 43-101 / JORC support
• Strategic advisory on critical and energy transition raw materials

MineGuessr is part of our commitment to high-quality raw materials education and open dialogue around how mines evolve over time.

If you would like to discuss a project, benchmark a mine plan or explore collaboration, you are welcome to book a meeting with us.