Elba Island, Livorno Province, Tuscany, Italyi

Regional Level Types
Elba Island	Island
Livorno Province	Province
Tuscany	Region
Italy	- not defined -

Elba, located 10 kilometres from the coastal town of Piombino, is the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago. The island is part of the province of Livorno and is divided into eight municipalities: Campo nell'Elba, Capoliveri, Marciana, Marciana Marina, Porto Azzurro, Portoferraio, Rio Marina, and Rio nell'Elba.

The geology of Elba Island is very interesting for the structural complexity. The first organic geological map and related monograph of the Elba Island were performed by Lotti (1884, 1886). A model which divides the nappe pile into five complexes was proposed in the 1950s by Trevisan (1950, 1951) and successively slightly modified by Barberi et al. (1967, 1969). According to Trevisan’s model, the Tuscany units (Complexes I, II and III) are overlain by Ligurian units (Complexes IV and V): the lower three complexes have continental features, while the upper two are oceanic in character. Two Late Miocene monzogranitic plutonic masses crop out in the western (Monte Capanne, 6.9 Ma) and eastern (La Serra-Porto Azzurro, 5.9 Ma) sectors of the Elba Island, along with their microgranite, aplite, and pegmatite dyke swarms.

Iron ores from Elba Island are one of the most important iron sources in the Mediterranean area since the first millennium BC. The iron deposits of Elba Island are restricted to a relatively narrow belt extending north-south along the eastern coast of Elba Island, from Monte Calendozio (Rio Albano mine) to the Calamita promontory. Stratiform to pod-like to vein-type orebodies have long been mined in the Rio Albano – Rio Marina area of north-eastern Elba. The orebodies are preferentially located within quartz–phyllite formations of the Tuscan Nappe, Carboniferous to Triassic in age, at or close to the contact with overlying carbonates. They are mainly composed of fine- to coarse-grained lamellar/micaceous hematite, commonly associated with pyrite and gangue quartz, adularia, and chlorite. Pb–Zn–Bi sulphides may be locally abundant. Orebodies located at the contact between phyllites and carbonate formations may contain large amounts of pyrite, often converted by exogenous oxidation to masses of vuggy, black-brownish to red-yellowish limonites.
Hematite-rich ores from Elba Island iron mines are characterized by a marked and very distinctive geochemical signature, a co-enrichment in W and Sn, which allows distinguishing them from other European iron ores. Unlike hematite-rich ores, the goethite-rich ores from eastern Elba Island do not show anomalous contents of either W or Sn. This is not surprising because these ores formed by supergene alteration of pyrite lenses/masses; thus iron hydroxides did not precipitate from the same hydrothermal fluids responsible for the hematite ores.
The concentrations of Sn and W in hematite-rich ores from Elba Island locally reach ore-grade levels, and it is quite surprising that this geochemical anomaly has been detected only in very recent times. These iron ores have been exploited and processed since at least the first millennium BC, but even the most recent mining reports do not make any reference to such high W and Sn contents (up to 4950 μg g-1 and 8400 μg g-1, respectively). These two elements are hosted by tiny grains of W–Sn mineral phases (ferberite, scheelite, and cassiterite) that are disseminated throughout the hematite matrix, as detected by the SEM–EDX analyses. In principle, however, the possibility that the two elements are at least partially incorporated in the crystal lattice of hematite itself cannot be excluded (Benvenuti et al., 2013).

Iron ores from eastern Elba Island have been used for iron production by direct methods and traded along the coasts of the entire Mediterranean Sea since Etruscan times at least. Iron from Elba was surely smelted by the Etruscan inhabitants of Populonia, the seaside town on the coast of Etruria that was one of the most important iron-working sites in the Mediterranean region. As evidence of the iron production, huge heaps of iron slag were discharged for centuries over the Gulf of Baratti (see Baratti slag locality). Ilva (Elba’s Latin name) was thus celebrated in ancient times by many authors for the unfailing abundance of its iron mines. The mining operations reached their peak in the 19th and 20th centuries AD: annual production rose from about 7000 tons in the middle of the 19th century to 800 000 tons immediately after the First World War; it was maintained at between 400 000 and 600 000 tons in the decades that followed, up to the known closure of the last iron mine (Ginevro) in 1981. An overall estimate of some 60 million tons of iron ore has been exploited on Elba Island over about 3000 years of mining activity (Tanelli et al., 2001).

Fossils

This region is too big or complex to display the fossil list, try looking at smaller subregions.

Mindat Articles

Ilvaite, the French and the island of Elba by David Carter

Localities in this Region

Other Regions, Features and Areas that Intersect

References