On 11 March 2025, the first integrative excursion of GeoPlanet PhD students to the famous Permian salt mine in Kłodawa took place. Participants were able to trace successive levels (Zechstein cyclothems) of salt, starting with older sodium salts (halite) through increasingly younger cells of potassium-magnesium salts (e.g. sylvine, KCl; carnallite, KMgCl3•6H2O) cut by with epigenetic veins of polyhalite, K2Ca2Mg(SO4)•2H2O, and anhydrite (CaSO4). A considerable attraction was the acquisition of blue halite, which owes its colour, among other things, to inclusions of hydrogen sulphide. After admiring the so-called angel salt (fibrous halite) in the Zuber rock and the historic site of the youngest K-Mg salts, the tour ended in the representative underground concert hall.
Our guides to the mine were its chief geologist and dr hab. Łukasz Kruszewski (ING PAN)
