On the problems of Ba, Pb, Zn Pleše ore deposit (Slovenia)

Abstract

In this paper we present the years ago collected unpublished data on the Pleše ore deposit which we completed also with some recent ones. They all speak against the offered interpretation of the geologic structure (Dozet, 1999), and especially against the Skythian age of this Ba, Pb and Zn deposit. We showed that the two large concordant barite bodies of syngenegtic origin are associated with an exactly determined horizon within the Carboniferous beds, that they were formed almost certainly in relation with the Asturian orogenic phase, and that they occur by chance in the hanging wall contact with the Skythian dolomite along a thrust plane. During Tertiary the epigenetic remobilization brought the ore substance from Paleozoic rocks into the mentioned dolomite. In one of the carefully investigated geochemic traverses the remobilization distance for Pb and Hg is 70 meters, and for Ba greater than 100 meters. For the existence of the Pleše barite-bearing formation as conceived by Dozet (1999) there are no infallible proofs.