Arsenic

Arsenic ore resources are related to occurrences of arsenic minerals like loellingite (FeAs₂) and arsenopyrite (FeAsS), hosted in vein hydrothermal or metasomatic intrusive metal ore types.

In Poland, the arsenic minerals reported form the major deposit situated at Złoty Stok and from numerous ore-bearing veins at Czarnów and Miedzianka near Kamienna Góra and other sites in the Sudety Mts. Arsenic ores were exploited at Złoty Stok in the period of XVI to XX century AD. Besides arsenic, gold was also extracted from rich ore with arsenic contents up to 40 % being also a high grade gold ore, containing up to 40 grams of that metal per tonne. After the Second World War, the Złoty Stok deposit was exploited in the years 1954-1960 to be abandoned thereafter because of a very limited demand and high toxicity of arsenic. According to mining records c.a. 16 tonnes of gold was extracted from this deposit. The amount remaining after all previous extraction is estimated at 537,000 tonnes of As ores yielding 19,600 tonnes of arsenic and 1,500 kg of gold. The other abandoned arsenic deposit is that from Czarnów in the Sudety Mts. According to results of a general exploration from the year 1955, resources of that deposit are relatively small. Inferred resources were estimated at about 20,500 tonnes of arsenopyrite ore with mean content of arsenic equal about 10.15 %. Sulphide ores are accompanied by gold to a few grams per tonne.

Table 1. List of arsenic and tin deposits - thousand tonnes

Prepared by: Stanisław Z. Mikulski