Sediment-hosted stratiform copper mineral systems (SSC) represent the most important source of copper produced in the world after porphyry copper deposits, and account for 20-25% of the global production and reserves. The Kupferschiefer-type deposit (characterised by reduced-facies) is a sub-type of SSC deposits, and for 50 deposits of this sub-type the median tonnage is 34 Mt with a median grade of 1.5% Cu. The Kupferschiefer mineralization in Poland is located at the southwestern margin of the Polish Zechstein Basin, which represents the eastern part of the large Central European (Southern Permian) Basin (CEB). The CEB is known to host many hydrocarbon and mineral deposits, and there has been extensive research work carried out over the last century, resulting in large but unharmonized geological datasets. In Poland alone there are thousands of kilometres of seismic sections and several hundred kilometres of drill holes drilled mostly for the petroleum industry. Extensive geological, mineralogical, petrological and geochemical studies of the Zechstein copper-bearing series have also been conducted to support mineral exploration. However, it appears that the two industries, despite investigating the same basin at the same time, did not cross paths nor exchange methodologies and ideas. In both hydrocarbon and mineral deposits, despite over a century of research and exploration, many outstanding questions and problems remain. CET in collaboration with the University of Warsaw, Poland aims to answer some of these questions through application of the Mineral/Petroleum System approach to historical data sets. In addition to Polish datasets, Getech Group is providing in-kind global datasets of the CEB. This is a 3-year industry sponsored project let by Dr. Weronika Gorczyk. Our sponsors include First Quantum, Teck Resources and BHP.
The project is open to sponsors, as the research team is ready for new data collection to investigate the hydrothermal alteration and fluid chemistry in a variety of mineralized and barren Kupferschiefer SSC systems. This part of the project will be led by Dr. Brian Tattitch and Prof. Steffen Hagemann.
Participating Partner Research Orgs: University of Warsaw (Poland): Agnieszka Wrzosek, Paweł Karnkowski
Industry Participants: First Quantum Minerals, Teck Resources, BHP, Getech Group PLC