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BARITE

0,00 zł

BARITE  BaSO

Mine: Lubin, Silezia Poland 

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Barite Poland

The Lubin area is famous for one of the world biggest copper (6th producer) and silver (2nd producer) deposits. In 3 enormous mines, over 20 000 miners are employed. The average depth of workings is about 3300 ft. Several years ago, the total length of tunnels reached over 7000 miles!

The copper and silver deposit mined in this area is a sedimentary basin. It occurs in the Zechstein cyclotemes, black shale formations deposited during the Upper Permian in a huge, anoxic epicontinental basin. The most import_ant ore minerals occur as a micro-grains and are visible only under the microscope. Due to elemental (hydrothermal) mobilization, part of this primary mineralization became locally bigger and evident with naked eye, as well. Usually, it contains barite, bornite, chalcocite, chalcopyrite, gypsum and marcasite. The majority of the secondary mineralization occurs in faults as solid veins, rarely with cavities. In limestones, sporadic karstic cavities may occur. Those cavities, when present, can reach a diameter of several meters, and they are usually filled by barite or gypsum.

In 2011, in “Lubin Glowny” mine, an unusual discovery was made. During mining process a cavity was exposed. In this cavity was a pocket that had shape of vertical chimney up to 15 ft high. At the end of chimney, the pocket curved and changed to long, irregular tunnel, about 33 ft long! The pocket was so big that in some parts it was even possible to walk inside!

The entire pocket was covered by kidney shaped barite. The floor was covered by dust, but the walls and the roof barite ‘balls’ were covered by small sparkly and colorful marcasite crystals. The whole pocket was shiny and very impressive. The shape of the walls was irregular, with a variety of hanging concave and convex structures often cropping out of the walls. Those forms were also covered by barite and marcasite. Locally, also small pseudostalactites were present.

During the short time that the pocket was exposed, the miners had the chance to take photos and collect several specimens. Unfortunately, shortly after the discovery, the pocket was filled by concrete, and probably it will not produce specimens anymore. We hope that miners will find new pockets filled with barite in that region.