Halite

specimen number:
2292161

location:
Wieliczka Mine, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland

description:
A grouping of gemmy cubic halite crystals to 5.0 cm on edge. Classic locality for the species.

The Wieliczka Mine, located in the Krakow metropolitan area within the Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland, is a historic underground rock salt mine renowned for its vast labyrinth of excavated chambers and subterranean salt sculptures. Geologically, the deposit formed during the Miocene epoch, approximately thirteen.and.a.half million years ago, within the Carpathian Foredeep, where the evaporation of an ancient sea followed by tectonic compression created thick, highly contorted layers of rock salt mixed with siltstones and clays. Underground extraction began at the site in the late thirteenth century, around 1280, under the royal enterprise Zupy Krakowskie, making it one of the oldest continuously operating industrial operations in the world. Commercial table salt production finally ceased in 1996 due to rising extraction costs and low market prices, shifting the historic property entirely into a major conservation, tourism, and cultural heritage facility that remains active today.

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