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Poland is a country with a considerable and varied base of mineral resources and with abundant mining traditions dating back to prehistoric times. The oldest evidence of the usage of mineral resources concerns the production of stone tools, use of natural pigments, extraction of clay for ceramics production, use of earth materials, and later, stone materials for building houses.
The oldest traces of mineral exploitation within the present territory of Poland date back to the Paleolithic and Neolithic times. Prehistoric open pits to dig flint are known along the northern rim of the Holy Cross Mountains. In fact, an underground mine of world-wide fame is preserved in Krzemionki Opatowskie, where banded Jurassic flints were exploited in 2300–1800 BC. Also during the Neolithic era, basalt, amphibolite, serpentinite and nefrite were mined in the Lower Silesia.
Another industry with long traditions dating back to the 1st or 2nd century is ferrous metallurgy. Its first centre in the Polish lands was the Staropolski Industrial District in the Holy Cross Mountains. It is based on several mineral deposits of iron ore located nearby. Rock salt excavation dates back as far as the12th century. Already in the 13th century, an underground salt mine was established in Wieliczka near Kraków, and a few years later, a similar one was opened in Bochnia. Both mines continued operating until the last years of the 20th century and at present are being used as museums and underground health spas. Since the 12th century, galena ores have been excavated and used to extract silver, zinc and lead in the area of Olkusz, whereas gold and hard coal have been excavated in Lower Silesia. Native sulfur excavation in the surroundings of Kraków, in Swoszowice, also has a long history dating back to the 15th century including one of the world’s largest deposits discovered in the Tarnobrzeg region.
More recently, traditional Polish resources of hard coal, rock salt, iron, zinc, and lead were augmented by discoveries of large deposits of brown coal, sulfur, and copper. In fact, geological prospecting conducted from 1952 in new perspective areas near Legnica and Glogów led to the discovery of huge sedimentary deposits of copper ores in the Fore-Sudetic Monocline between 1957 and 1959. This discovery of a rich deposit of copper ore in the heart of Europe was one of the greatest geological sensations of the middle of the 20th century. It altered the face of the entire region and created one of the largest and most modern industrial regions in the country. Poland became a globally important producer of copper and associated silver. Total resources of this great copper-rich area totaled about 2.2 billion tons of ore, containing about 45.5 million tons of copper and 131.7 thousand tons of silver. Today, Poland remains as Europe’s largest producer of bituminous coal, sulfur and copper, as well as the second largest producer of silver in the world.
At present, the Polish resources register includes more than 9000 identified and documented deposits of 51 minerals. Deposits in the register are of different size and importance, yet the largest group consists of commonly found deposits of sand and natural gravel aggregates.
The following map of Poland indicates the location of mineral production in Poland. This includes coal, lignite, lead, zinc, copper, crude oil, natural gas, salt, sulfur, dolomite, limestone, gypsum, and sandstone. As is shown, most the production occurs in the southern part of the country. As well as these deposits, other metallic mineral resources were also researched including bauxites and tin ores in the Sudetes, the molybdenum-tungsten-copper ores near Myszków, and chemical deposits such as pyrite, barite and fluorite in the Lower Silesia and the Holy Cross Mountains.