May 25, 2026

Geology and Mineral Resources – Poland

Introduction

Figure 1 – Poland
Credit: Mapsland, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licence

The Republic of Poland is a country of 39,142,267 people in Central Europe on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. The country has an area of 312,696 square kilometres and borders on: Russia (Kaliningrad) and Lithuania, to the northeast; Belarus and Ukraine, to the east; Slovakia and the Czech Republic, to the south; and Germany, to the west.

Poland is a relatively well off country with a per capita GDP (PPP) of $59,792 and a very high Human Development Index of 0.906.Poland has a social market economyand is a member of the European Union(EU). The largest component of Poland's economy is the service sector (62.3%), followed by industry (34.2%) and agriculture (3.5%). The top exports of Poland are motor vehicle parts and accessories, batteries and electric accumulators, automatic data processing machines; furniture, and transport trucks. In January 2026, Poland exported mostly to Germany, the Czech Republic, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. The top imports of Poland are automobiles, petroleum, motor vehicle parts and medications.Imported come mostly from Germany, China, the United States, Italy, and the Netherlands.

For more details on the country, check out the Wikipedia and Grokipedia articles on the country.

Geology

Figure 2 – Geological Setting of Poland
Credit: Figure 1 in Sowiżdżał, 2015

Poland’s geology sits on at the junction of three major geological provinces of Europe: the East European Craton, which includes the Teisseyre – Tornquist Zone and the Polish Lowland; the Palaeozoic Platform; and the Carpathian Mountains, which includes the Sudetes Mountains, to the west of the Carpathians, and the Carpathian Foredeep, to the northeast.

Figure 3 links to a interactive geology map of Poland from Macrostrat.

Figure 3 – Interactive Geology Map of Poland
Credit: Macrostrat, CC BY 4.0

Another way to visualize the geology of Poland is in this geological model from the The Polish Geological Institute - National Research Institute (PGI-NRI), as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4 – Geological Model of Poland
Credit: The Polish Geological Institute - National Research Institute (PGI-NRI),
© 2026 3D_Geological mapping. All rights reserved

The youngest deposits in Poland are Quaternary aged glacial deposits covering most of the Polish Lowland. The Quaternary deposits overlie Neogene and Paleogene aged deposits in lowlands. Neogene and Paleogene deposits are also found in the Carpathians including the Miocene aged salt deposits of Wieliczka.

The geology of the Carpathian Mountains is fairly complex, you can find a link to a book on the subject here (much of the book is behind paywalls). The basement rocks of the Polish Carpathians were formed during the Variscan Orogeny and consist of crystalline rocks. Overlying the basement rocks are Paleozoic and Mesozoic aged sedimentary rocks. The formation of the Carpathian Mountains involved the deposition of those sedimentary rocks in Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary basin and the subsequent uplift of the rocks into the current mountains during the Alpine-Carpathian-Dinaridic Orogeny. If you think that the Polish Carpathians might be a good place to look for oil, you’d be right. The Carpathian petroleum province has a long history and the USGS thinks that there might be potential for more discoveries. Interestingly enough, British and Canadian wildcatters John Simon Bergheim and William Henry McGarvey were among the first to drill an oil well in the Carpathian region in 1893.

The geology of the Polish Lowland is somewhat simpler. The Precambrian aged basement rocks are deeply buried, but are probably predominately crystalline rocks. Overlying the basement rocks are deposits laid down in Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary basins. These basins also include petroleum deposits.

Paleontology

With it’s complex geology and sedimentary basins, Poland has many fossiliferous formations. Here are a few examples:

Saurichthys

Figure 5 – Saurichthys
Credit: Ghedoghedo, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Saurichthys was a genus of predatory fish, about a metre long, that lived from the Triassic to the Jurassic periods. In Poland, fossils of Saurichthys were found in the Middle Triassic aged rocks near Miedary in southern Poland.

Asaphus

Figure 6 – Asaphus
Credit: Smokeybjb, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Asaphuswas a genus of trilobites that lived during the Middle Ordovician. Fossils of Asaphus were found at the Mineral Raw Materials Mine in Mielenko Drawskie, West Pomeranian Province.

Monograptus

Figure 7 – Monograptus
Credit: Ghedo, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Monograptuswas a genus of graptolite that lived during the Ludlow Epochof the Silurian Period. Graptolites were colonial marine animals that lived from the Cambrian to the Early Carboniferous periods; their fossils resemble pencil scratchings on rock. In Poland, Monograptus was found in a rock core drilled near Mielnik as well as from the Mineral Raw Materials Mine in Mielenko Drawskie.

Carcharias

Figure 8 – Carcharias
Credit: Richard Ling, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

A shark that lived during the Miocene Epoch, fossils of Carcharias were found in the Carpathian Foredeep. Modern Carcharias are apex predators in the Mediterranean Sea.

Mineral Resources

Figure 9 - Gypsum from the Sieroszowice Mine, Lubin, Lower Silesia
Credit: Ivar Leidus, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Poland has a long history of mineral extraction. According to the most recent USGS Minerals Yearbook (2019) for Poland, mining and quarrying accounted for 21.7% of the country’s GDP. Important commodities produced in Poland include rhenium (accounting for 15.7% of world production), silver (5.5%), and selenium (2.2%, excluding US production). Among the states of the EU Poland was the second largest producer of bituminous coal, third in refined copper production and lignite, and fourth in cement production. Other notable mineral commodities include mined copper, helium, lime, nitrogen (ammonia), peat, salt, industrial sand and gravel, and sulphur. The most recent mineral production statistics from the USGS for Poland are here and from the Polish State Mining Authority here.

Let look at where some of theses minerals come from.

Metallic Minerals

Copper, gold, lead, rhenium, silver, and selenium are are mined at three mines in the Lubin-Glogow District, all owned by the Polish mining firm, KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. : the Lubin Mine, the Polkowice-Sieroszowice Mine, and the Rudna Mine. A Canadian/US consortium recently announced new discoveries in western Poland. Here are links to a geochemical study of Polish copper deposits and a study of a new copper region in south-western Poland (strangely called the Northern Copper Belt).
Lead and zinc were formerly mined Olkusz, in the Silesian-Cracow region. This district has a long history of metallic mining including arsenic, cadmium, copper, germanium, and iron mining in the mines near Bytom, Poland.

Industrial Minerals

Cement is produced at nine plants; lime at five plants.
Gypsum and anhydrite are mined, or have been mined, from 16 deposits in Poland.
Salt is produced from brine extraction and rock salt mines including the Bochnia Salt Mine and the Wieliczka Salt Mine. The Polish salt mines are tourist destinations and tours of the mines are available.
Sulphur is mined at the Osiek Sulfur Mine.

Fuel Minerals

There are currently 23 active coal mines in Poland, extracting coal from 48 deposits. Figure 10 links to a page with an interactive map of coal mines in Poland.

Figure 10 – Interactive Map of Polish Coal Mines
Credit: energy.instrat.pl

Petroleum production in Poland comes from: the B3 oil field in the Baltic Sea, the B8 oil field also the Baltic Sea, the Barnówko-Mostno-Buszewo oil field, the Dębno oil field, and the Lubiatów-Międzychód-Grotów oil field.
Natural gas is produced from well fields at: the Daszawa, Dzików, Jasionka, Jodłówka, Kościan, Przemyśl, Radlin, Terliczka, Wola Obszańska, and Żołynia.

Products associated with oil and gas production include helium, and nitrogen fertilizers.

Helium is produced by the Polish Oil & Gas Company from wells near Odolanow.
Nitrogen ammonia production includes plants at Chorzow, Wloclawek, Kedzierzyn, Pulawy, Tarnow, and Police.

Figure 11 shows the Polish petroleum exploration concession map as of March 31, 2026.

Summary

Figure 12 - Ząbkowice Śląskie, Poland
Credit: Stary1995, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Poland looks like and interesting place to visit and hope to go there some day. For geoscientists, there is a lot to see and there is probably good potential for further mineral exploration, despite the fact that people have been extracting mineral resources from the country for a long time and all the easy pickings are long past.

Overall, I am optimistic for Poland, despite their often tragic history, they seem to be the most vigorous country in Europe for economic and social development. They also have zero patience for foreign visitors who overstay their welcome.

Standard Caveat

J. Robert Oppenheimer on freedom and scientific inquiry

The purpose of my weblog postings is to spark people's curiosity in geology. Don't entirely believe me until you've done your own research and checked the evidence. If I have sparked your curiosity in the subject of this posting, follow up with some of the links provided here. If you want to, go out into the field and examine some rocks on your own with the help of a good field guide. Follow the evidence and make up your own mind.

In science, the only authority is the evidence.