Conveners: Gregor Borg¹, Slawomir Oszczepalski², Cliff Taylor³
Session language: English

Topic:
Europe‘s Permian Kupferschiefer (medieval miners term for “copper shale”) Basin is host to one of the biggest sediment-hosted copper districts of the world, second only to the Central African Copperbelt. Earliest traces of mining date back to prehistoric times. The main mineralised regions in Germany and Poland have been mined systematically since medieval times and several major mines are currently operating in Poland. Current exploration in the Lausitz targets significant deep resources and Poland tests down-dip extensions of ore zone.

The polymetallic Cu-Pb-Zn-(Au-PGE-Co-Ni-etc) mineralisation is transgressive to the Lower Permian – Upper Permian boundary, closely associated with redox events of different styles and ages, and occurs in various host rocks, e.g. footwall conglomerate and sandstone, C_org-rich black shale (the Kupferschiefer sensu stricto), and in hangingwall carbonate rocks. Although a polyphase metallogenetic origin consisting of diagenetic and major epigenetic stages is widely accepted, key problems such as source rocks for base and particularly precious metals as well as the detailed timing of events remain unsolved. Furthermore, a recent evaluation of the entire Kupferschiefer basin by the USGS’s Global Mineral Ressource Assessment Programme (USGS-GMRAP) has revealed several major underexplored and unexplored metallogenic tracts in Germany and Poland. Scientific results from the fields of organic geochemistry, PGE-geochemistry, isotopic age dating, and palaomagnetism now provide the base for an integrated, holistic approach to improve our understanding of the Kupferschiefer mineralising system. Additionally, research from very different scientific fields, such as industrial archaeology and archaeogeology of the Bronze Age to Medieval Period, highlight the socio-economic significance, which the Kupferschiefer had - and still has today - for the cultural development of Central Europe.

This session invites scientists working on the Kupferschiefer or related topics from all geoscientific discipline, from the exploration industry, universities, research institutions and geological surveys alike. Field trips to the most significant German and Polish Kupferschiefer Districts will be offered in conjunction with the conference.

_{¹Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, ²Polish Geological Institute-National Research Institute, ³United States Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado, USA}