Latitude: 46°29'9"N
Longitude: 14°49'40"E
Revir Helena, Črna, Mežica, Slovenija
The mining district Helena was the most productive mining area at the end of the 19th Century. Above 900 m elevation rich wulfenite ore was mined between 1878-1951. The transportation adit to Helena district at 784 m leads to the well known localities for calcite and wulfenite such as Doroteja, Barbara East, Rišperk and Christmas tunnel. Probably the most attractive II. General Level (900 m) with splendid calcites and the Doroteja Level (925 m) with famous bipyramidal wulfenites can be accessed through the inclined shaft from the main Helena adit. One of the best known finds of wulfenite in Helena was made at the end of 60' by the miner Erich Podojsteršek from Podpeca. The pocket measured several meters in length and produced hundreds of superb specimens, among which 20-40 cm plates covered with large truncated bipyramidal wulfenites and greyish calcite crusts were quite abundant. Because of small interest for mineral collecting in Slovenia at that time, most of these specimens found their new home in collections abroad. In 2005 a research expedition encountered a new 3 m long pocket, which contained 27 cases of excellent carrot orange bipyramidal wulfenite specimens with snow white coatings of fine crystalline calcite. These specimens are now at display in the Mining Museum in Mežica.
References
• Ildikó Cora, Mátyás Czugler, István Dódony, Aleksander Rečnik (2011)
On the symmetry of wulfenite PbMoO
4 from Mežica (Slovenia). Acta Crystallographica C67: i33-i35.
• Aleksander Rečnik (2010)
Minerals of the lead and zinc ore deposit Mežica. Bode Vlg. & Jožef Stefan Institute. Ljubljana: 112 pp.
• Aleksander Rečnik, Igor Dolinar, Uroš Herlec, Ivo Štrucl, Suzana Fajmut Štrucl (2009)
Weltfundstellen: Die Blei- und Zinkerz-Lagerstätte Mežica in Slowenien. Mineralien Welt 20/6: 40-83.
• Peter Bancroft, Mirjan Žorž, Franc Krivograd, Gregor Kobler (1991)
The Mežica Mine, Slovenia, Yugoslavia. Mineralogical Record 22: 97-104.
• Cornelius S. Hurlbut (1955)
Wulfenite symmetry as shown on crystals from Yugoslavia. American Mineralogist 40: 857-860.
External Links
http://webbooks.ijs.si a full on-line access to the book:
Minerals of the lead and zinc ore deposit Mežica written by A. Rečnik (2010).
Mineral List
7 entries listed. 5 valid minerals.
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