At the KGHM Rudna Mine, Lubin District, Poland - After an early rise and breakfast, the group set out at 0540 am to drive to the Rudna mine to change and catch the 0730 am cage to go underground. The left image shows the shaft, the group went down, one of many on the large mine area. Underground the group was taken to an active room and pillar mining area (upper middle), several kilometres from the shaft, where they were able to see the fresh Kupferschiefer (upper right), which is very obvious, occurring as a dark band averaging ~30 cm in thickness where photographed, sandwiched between the pale Weissliegendes sandstones below, and a similarly pale dolostone above (this image is in colour). Note the shearing along the Kupferschiefer, particularly at the base. The ore was in all three units. The group spent several hours underground at a number of locations studying the ore and lithologies. The area visited was close to a zone where the Kupferschiefer is absent and the dolomites directly overlie the sandstones.
   Tour group underground at Rudna - From left: Andrzej Chmielewski (Polish Geological Institute); Sebastian Stelter (Anglo American); Mike Mlynarczyk (Redstone Exploration Services); Jaroslav Suchan (Senior Geologist, KGHM - our underground guide); George Steele (Rio Tinto); Peter Dodds (Anglo American); Tim Poole (Rio Tinto); Craig Hartshorne (Anglo American); Benny Steiner (Rio Tinto); Dr Mariusz Krzak (AGH University); Peter Holmes (Avannaa Resources).
   After returning to the surface and changing, the group was given a briefing on the operation and a geological overview, before a member of the tour group gave a presentation to the KGHM geological staff on a large sediment hosted copper project he was working on, elsewhere in the world. This presentation, with translation to Polish, lasted almost an hour and generated discussion.   Photograph by Mike Porter.