The Lavrion District (also Laurion; Laurium) is situated in the southeastern corner of Attica (also Attika; Attiki) peninsula, around 40 km southeast of the city of Athens. It is a 150 square km area bordered by the cape of Sounion to the South (famous for its ancient Greek temple), the village of Plaka to the North (16 km north of Sounion), the town of Lavrion and the Aegean sea to the East and the area of Anavyssos to the West (around 10 km west of the town of Lavrion).
The area was mined since the ancient times (signs of Cu-ore extaction from the 3rd millenium B.C.) and most intensively from 600 B.C. to 100 A.D. The Lavrion mines were the main source of wealth for the city of Athens during the classical times (5th-4th century B.C.). They were abandoned during the roman times and reopened in 1865. All mining activity stopped in 1984.
The most important mines are situated in or around the village of Plaka (6 km north of the town of Lavrion) and Agios Konstantinos (formerly Kamareza; 5 km west of Lavrion). Hundreds of smaller ancient mines, shafts and prospects are spread within the distict, most of them along the N-S ridge from Kamareza to Sounion. Also several slag localities are situated on beaches and coves along the eastern coast of the district. Slag minerals were created by sea water chemically reacting with the coastal slag heaps produced by processing ores mined inland from the slag sites during ancient times (mainly 500-200 B.C., but as early as 3000 B.C. at Thorikos). See the separate listings for the mineral species found in the mines and the slag localities of the district.
This list is automatically generated by combining the lists for the specific sites. This includes listing type locality species as "TL." It should be understood that the actual type localities for these species are specific sites in the District - NOT the District itself. See specific site lists to determine which site is the type locality for any given species.
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