Regional Report: Tarnowskie Góry (Tarnowitz), Upper Silesia (Śląskie), Poland

The ore deposit of Tarnowskie Góry is situated in the Muschelkalk carbonates of the Tarnowice trough, Variscian tectonic component, renewed during Laramian movements. Two types of deposits were mined here: 1) sheet-like bodies (blankets and lenses) formed of sulfide minerals, usually less than one meter thick and situated in the lowermost section of the secondary ore-bearing dolomites; 2) irregular bodies of weathered ores. The main mineral of the sulfide ore was silver-bearing galena with rare sphalerite and iron sulfides. The secondary ores are mixtures of zinc oxides and silicates, dolomite and iron oxides. Subsequent karst formations, often connected with weathered and limonite bodies superimposed the primary ore deposits. The Tarnowskie Góry deposit is of the Mississippi Valley type ores of the Kraków-Silesian Region, although this deposit does not represent a typical example of this formation. In other localities the formation is represented by lenticular or irregular bodies (several to several tens of meters thick and several tens to several hundreds of meters long), which are built of galena-sphalerite-dolomite-pyrite (marcasite) breccia, developed due to hydrothermal metasomatic mineralization and several cycles of hydrothermal karstification, mineralization and breakdown. The ores are located mainly in the ore-bearing dolomites but spread also in other units of the Triassic carbonates, reaching even the Devonian and Jurassic carbonates. The Tarnowskie Góry deposit was mined since the Middle Ages until the beginning of the 20th century. Numerous remnants of historical mining occur in the area (the system of mine galleries is ca 300 km long). Secondary calcite speleothems have developed in the mine galleries. (Urban, Jan. Polish Database of Representative Geosites Selected for the European Network: see link below).

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