Trinity College Dublin SEG Student Chapter Poland Field Trip 2019 Report

Trinity College Dublin SEG at the AGH University of Science & Technology with their SGA

student chapter.

Introduction: The Trinity College Dublin SEG Student chapter organised a five-day field trip to Poland to

visit several mines. These mines included the KGHM Kupferschiefer mine near Glogow and the historical Wieliczka salt mine. A mixture of Trinity undergraduate and PhD students participated. The field trip was coordinated with the AGH University of Science and Technology’s Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits (SGA) student chapter.

Participants: Ellen Mullarkey Trinity College Dublin, SEG Dan Collison Niall Gibbons Ellen Lavelle Kayla Young Michael Fuller Neil Scott Foteini Drakou Krzysztof Foltyn AGH University of Science and Technology, SGA

Trip Objectives 1. Collaborate with SGA Baltic in order to network with other European geologists, share

knowledge and improve the content of the field trip. 2. To provide students with the opportunity to visit an active mine and have a greater

understanding of mining geology. 3. To aid students to improve their knowledge of European ore deposits and the geology of

the Kupferschiefer. 4. To learn about the mining heritage of Poland.

Day 1. Monday 14/1/2019 The group met in Dublin Airport, before travelling to Kraków. We then made our way to our

hostel “Hostel Centrum Sabot” and had an evening to sightsee.

Day 2. Tuesday 15/1/2019- Wieliczka Salt Mine, Natural History Museum & AGH University

The Wieliczka Salt Mine is situated in the outskirts of Kraków and is a Unesco World Heritage Site. The salt deposits are Miocene in age, approximately 13.6 million years old. They formed in huge sea in a foreland basin of the Carpathian mountains. This basin was a part of the northern branch of the Tethys Ocean. Over about 20-thousand years, salt rock was deposited from the sea.

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The group took a 3 hour tour underground. The tour examined the traditional mining methods used dating from the 1500s up until 1996 when mining ceased. This allowed for us to compare mining methods and geology with the salt deposits at the KGHM mine and get an understanding of the regional geology.

In the afternoon, we visited the Natural History Museum which gave a good overview of the geology of Poland and has an interesting collection of Polish minerals and fossils.

In the evening, we went to the AGH University of Science & Technology to receive a lecture on the Kupferschiefer from Dr. Adam Piestrzynski. This lecture gave us an excellent overview of the Polish Kupferschiefer and gave us a good understanding of the copper deposit at the Polkowice-Sieroszowice Mine in preparation for our trip there. Afterwards, AGH geology students from the SGA chapter gave us a tour of the university’s extensive mineral collection.

A chapel carved from salt in Wieliczka Salt Mine.

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A participant admires the mineral collection at the Natural History Museum

Day 3. Wednesday 16/1/2019 We travelled from Kraków to Glogow by train. We stayed in Helios Hostel Glogow.

Day 4. Thursday 17/1/2019 KGHM Polkowice - Sieroszowice Mine The main event of the field trip was an underground visit to the KGHM Polkowice-Sieroszowice mine. The mine has been in production since 1968 with copper and silver as the main commodities. Rock salt is also mined. The Kupferschiefer is a Permian marl layer which is found across the Netherlands, Germany and Poland. The group entered the mine at shaft SW-1 along with students from AGH and Prof. Adam Piestrzynski. Prior to entry into the mine, the group was presented with Personal Protective Equipment and a health & safety briefing.

On the underground tour of the mine, the group travelled to well exposed sites on Jeeps and viewed the room and pillar mining. The first sites were of the Kupferschiefer layer which showed chromite and chalcopyrite mineralisation. This was followed by a visit to the rock salt which is stratigraphically higher.

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Trinity College Dublin SEG chapter and AGH University of Science and Technology students

dressed in Personal Protective Equipment following the underground tour of the KGHM Polkowice-Sieroszowice mine.

Trinity College Dublin SEG chapter and the SGA Baltic members in front of the SW-1 shaft at the

KGHM Polkowice-Sieroszowice mine.

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Polish Field Trip Summary & Acknowledgements The highlight of the trip for everyone was the KGHM Polkowice-Sieroszowice mine. Few of

the students had visited an underground mine previously and this gave them exposure to the operations of an underground mine, mining geology and near mine exploration.

In future it would be interesting for the chapter to visit the Mississippi Valley type Pb-Zn mines in Poland in order to compare to Irish-type Pb-Zn mines. The chapter really enjoyed collaborating with other European geologists from SGA Baltic and we hope to welcome them to Ireland for a field trip in the coming years.

The SEG chapter is very grateful to the SGA Baltic and specifically Krzysztof Foltyn without whom the trip would not have been possible. The SEG chapter acknowledges the Stewart R. Wallace fund for funding of $500 towards the trip.

Fieldtrip Budget

Expense Date(s) Quantit y

Cost PP(€)

Cost per night(€)

Cost pp per night(€)

Total (€)

Flights to Krakow 14/01/19 7 49.81 n/a n/a 393.45

Flights to Wroclaw 18/01/19 8 33.78 n/a n/a 270.2

Hostel in Krakow 14/01/19 to 16/01/2019 8 15.58 41.55 5.19 124.64

Accommodation Glogow

16/01/19 to 17/01/19 8 8.44 67.49 8.44 67.49

Hostel in Wroclaw 17/01/19 to 18/01/19 8 7.1 56.82 7.1 56.82

Train from Krakow to Glogow 16/01/19 8 17.5 n/a n/a 140.03

Train from Glogow to Wroclaw 17/01/19 8 4.98 n/a n/a 39.87

Taxi from Krakow Airport to Krakow 14/02/19 8 2.43 n/a n/a 19.44

Taxi from Glogow to KGHM 17/01/19 8 0.84 n/a n/a 6.74

Taxi from KGHM to Glogow 17/01/19 8 1.54 n/a n/a 12.29

Taxi from Wroclaw to Wroclaw Airport 18/01/19 8 1.07 n/a n/a 8.53

Train from Krakow to Wieliczka 15/01/19 8 0.88 n/a n/a 7.03

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Entry to Wieliczka Salt Mine 15/01/19 8 15.82 n/a n/a 126.52

Bus from Wieliczka to Krakow 14/01/19 8 2.93 n/a n/a 23.5

Total Cost PP(€) 162.07

Total Spend(€) 1296.55

Total Cost PP ($) 179

Total Spend ($) 1430

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