The Kupferschiefer Deposits and Prospects in SW Poland: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

Polish sediment-hosted stratiform copper deposits associated with Zechstein sediments are one of the country’s most valuable natural resources and the basis for its copper industry. The paper presents the history of their research and current exploration. Although documented deposits and their identified resources are described and characterized, much attention is paid to areas located outside of them, including those where geological exploration is currently underway. The gradual depletion of shallow Cu–Ag reserves in the Lubin-Sieroszowice district and elsewhere in the world requires exploration for deeper-seated deposits. To expand resources, time span and scale of copper production in Poland, exploration and definition of new prospects is of great importance. Thirty-five prospective areas with hypothetical and speculative resources have been delineated in SW Poland, including the most prospective areas adjacent to the Cu–Ag Lubin-Sieroszowice deposit. The paper also focuses on those parts of the Fore-Sudetic Monocline where new copper deposits were recently identified. Their resources are described along with the methodology of establishing their boundaries, which differs from recommended Polish threshold parameters not taking into account the depths exceeding 1500 m. Intelligent modern mining and ore processing technologies are considered as a prerequisite for future profitable development of deposits at deeper levels.

On the Processes that Produce Hydrocarbon and Mineral Resources in Sedimentary Basins

“…Table 1 shows that 824, 927, and 1523 million tons of Cu, Pb and Zn, respectively, were added to the Kupferschiefer and immediately adjacent sediments in the area covered by the Atlas maps. The reserves of the Lubin, Polkowice-Sieroszosice and Rudna mining districts (near the black mining symbol at the north border of the red-outlined Fore-Sudetic Block in Figure 4D) are 30.4 Mt Cu [26]. The mine reserves thus constitute only 3.6% of the metallization.…”

“…Four to five carbonate-anhydrite-salt cycles were then deposited in a shallow marine setting on top of the Kupferschefer. By the end of the Cretaceous up to 8 km of sediments had accumulated over the Kupferschiefer [6,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

“…It also occurred in the midcontinent Proterozoic rift in the upper Peninsula of Michigan, for example, where reduced siltstones and shales of the Nonesuch Formation were oxidized by brines expelled from the underlying Copper Harbor conglomerate [6,[31][32][33]. What is remarkable about the Polish Kupferschiefer mineralzation is the documentation of its metallization by 774 drillholes (50,000 analyzed samples) across all of Poland [34] (now there are 1700 drill holes [26]). The metallization maps allow us to estimate the volume of brine required to produce the metal enrichment.…”

EMPA, XRD, and Raman Characterization of Ag-Bearing Djurleite from the Lubin Mine, Lower Silesia, Poland

“…On the Boundary Dolomite, or directly on the Weissliegend deposits, copperbearing shales, traditionally denominated "Kupferschiefer", occur. Kupferschiefer is composed of clayey shales, laminated marls, or dolomitic marls [2,15,16], rarely silt shales or mud shales [17], rich in organic matter. The thickness is variable, reaching up to 70 cm, but locally the Kupferschiefer is absent in the profile.…”

“…Djurleite (space group P2 1 /n, a: 2.690, b: 1.575, c: 1.357 nm, and β: 90.13 • ) is a copper sulfide with the general chemical formula of Cu 31 S 16 . It crystallizes with a monoclinicprismatic symmetry.…”