Economic geology at AGH - Summary of 2025 Activities
2025 was full of scientific and educational activities at the Ore Geology Group at AGH. Besides publishing scientific articles, members took part in numerous conferences, field works and excursions.
On 23–24 January, a meeting of the consortium carrying out the AVANTIS project, “Sustainable, decarbonised co-extraction of vanadium and titanium minerals from Europe’s low-grade vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite deposits” took place at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Minas y Energía of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Among the 28 participants were representatives of KGZiG: Władysław Zygo and Krzysztof Foltyn. The next consortium meeting will be held in April 2026 in Kraków.
On 29 April, a scientific seminar entitled “Rare Earth Elements (REE) of Ukraine – Much Ado About Nothing?” was held at the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Jagiellonian University. The first part of the meeting featured a lecture delivered by Prof. Zbigniew Sawłowicz (Jagiellonian University), while the second part consisted of a panel discussion with contributions from Prof. Adam Piestrzyński from our laboratory, Prof. Stanisław Wołkowicz (Polish Geological Institute–NRI), as well as online participants: Prof. Ihor Nikitenko and Prof. Serhii Shevchenko from Dnipro University of Technology.
In May, PhD student Konrad Kluza completed an internship at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Banská Bystrica focusing on techniques for analyzing stable isotopes of sulfur, oxygen, and carbon.
In mid-June, as part of ongoing collaborative research, we hosted Dr Stephen Centrella from The University of Western Australia. He delivered a lecture entitled “Fluid-mediated rock transformation from the lower to the upper crust” and subsequently visited the Lubin copper mine together with representatives of our laboratory.
Under the supervision of Prof. Adam Piestrzyński, two mineral-themed exhibitions were organised this year at the Main Library of AGH. The opening of the first exhibition, entitled “Minerals from the Collection of Prof. Karol Bohdanowicz, an Outstanding 20th-Century Geologist and a Remarkable Figure in the History of AGH”, which was on display from 14 March to 30 April, was honoured by the presence of Prof. Krzysztof Galos, the Chief National Geologist. The exhibition presented for the first time more than 100 mineral specimens from the vast collection (6,000 rock and mineral specimens) donated to the university by Prof. Bohdanowicz.
The second exhibition, entitled “Minerals from Zinc and Lead Ore Deposits from Mines That Have Passed into History”, was open to visitors from 17 September to 10 October.
As part of the SGA Mobility Grant programme, Prof. Napoleon Hammond (University of Limpopo, Republic of South Africa) visited the AGH–KGHM Laboratory of Critical Elements in July to carry out analytical measurements, while in October and November we hosted Dr Olawale Kayode Aromolaran (University of Ibadan, Nigeria). Prof. Hammond’s research focuses primarily on orogenic gold deposits in Archean greenstone belts of southern Africa, whereas Dr Aromolaran analysed samples from BIFs of the Ilesha schist belt in south-western Nigeria.
Members of the research group participated in scientific conferences, presenting the following research results:
International Congress of Copper Mining and Metallurgy 2025 in Lubin, where Prof. Adam Piestrzyński was a member of the Scientific Committee:
Gabriela Kozub-Budzyń, Adam Piestrzyński, Władysław Zygo, Krzysztof Foltyn (presentation)
Krzysztof Foltyn, Władysław Zygo, Gabriela Kozub-Budzyń, Adam Piestrzynski, Viktor Bertrandsson Erlandsson (presentation)
Dariusz Foszcz, Adam Piestrzyński, Andrzej Ciechulski (presentation)
Krzysztof Foltyn, Władysław Zygo, Adam Piestrzyński, Leonid Shumlyanskyy (presentation)
Krzysztof Foltyn, Władysław Zygo, Piotr Ducki, Eligiusz Gugała, Adam Piestrzyński (presentation)
Konrad Kluza, Jaroslav Pršek (poster)
Book of abstracts is available HERE . The SGA Biennial Meetings, held every two years, are among the most important international conferences on mineral deposits, and the next edition will take place in 2027 in Perth, Australia.
The anniversary conference 30th Meeting of the Petrology Group of the Mineralogical Society of Poland held in Lubliniec, with the main theme: “How Can Mineralogical Sciences Support the Mineral Resources Industry?”
Władysław Zygo, Krzysztof Foltyn, Eligiusz Gugała, Adam Piestrzyński (presentation)
Krzysztof Foltyn, Władysław Zygo, Adam Piestrzyński, Leonid Shumlyanskyy (presentation)
In July, students of the Economic Geology program participated in field training in the Balkans. In Serbia, they visited the active Rudnik Zn-Pb-Ag mine, where confirmed mining traditions date back at least to Roman times and may be much older, as some of the world’s oldest confirmed traces of copper smelting, dated to 5000 BCE, have been found in the area. In Bulgaria, the group visited the Asarel porphyry copper deposit, Zn-Pb Jużna Perrovica mine in the Madan region, Michalkovo fluorite deposit and Madzharovo epithermal gold deposit located in a caldera.
In September, the sixth edition of the Young Geologists’ Course took place in the Owl Mountains, organized by the AGH Student Geological Society. The training sessions were conducted by PhD students and staff of AGH, including Konrad Kluza from our group.
At the end of September, our group organized a workshop for children and youth titled “Critical Raw Materials and Metals of the Future – Mineralogy, Geology, Deposits” as part of the Małopolska Researchers’ Night 2025.
In October, the SGA Baltic Student Chapter organized the 16th annual chapter meeting in Kraków, which was also attended by students from the partner SGA Prague Student Chapter and SEG Brno Student Chapter. Participants had the opportunity to attend in-person lectures, including Prof. Adam Piestrzyński on “Kupferschiefer in Poland”, Władysław Zygo on “Silver in the Kupferschiefer Deposit in Poland”, and Maciej Jeż (ING PAN) on tectonics and structural geology, as well as an online presentation by Dr Denis Fougerouse from Curtin University in Perth “The Nanoscale Processes Controlling Gold Mineralisation in Orogenic Belts”.
The meeting also included field visits: participants were able to tour the Wieliczka Salt Mine and explore the geology of copper and silver deposits in the Fore-Sudetic Monocline at the Lubin Mine.
Dr Krzysztof Foltyn as part of the Excite network was granted the opportunity to carry out research using the Atom probe tomography (APT) at Curtin University in Perth, as part of the project "Germanium nanoscale distribution in chalcopyrite".
In November, as a result of the elections to the SGA Council for the term 01.01.2026–31.12.2029, Dr Krzysztof Foltyn was elected. The SGA (Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits), founded in 1965, is an international organization currently comprising over 1,300 members worldwide, including researchers, students, industry representatives, and public administration officials, all engaged in the broadly understood field of mineral deposit geology and mineral resources. In the past, members of the SGA Council have included Prof. Adam Piestrzyński (AGH) and Prof. Stanisław Mikulski (Polish Geological Institute-NRI; SGA President in 2024–2025).
In December 2025, during the 66th Barbórka Conference of AGH Student Scientific Circles, in the Geology Section, members of the AGH Student Geological Society delivered 7 presentations, including 3 prepared in the Ore Geology Research Group
Aleksander Błasiak (supervisor: dr Krzysztof Foltyn)
Pola Bojda, Julia Cybula (supervisors: dr hab. Jaroslav Pršek, MSc Konrad Kluza)
Aleksander Błasiak (supervisor: MSc Konrad Kluza)
In 2025 students have successfully defended MSc theses:
Urszula Charzyńska, supervisors: dr hab. Jaroslav Pršek, MSc Władysław Zygo
In December, Dr Miloš Velojić from the University of Belgrade visited AGH and gave a lecture titled “Analytical Methods for Examining Fluid Inclusions”. His visit provided an opportunity to discuss potential collaboration in the areas of internships, student field trips, and conducting measurements as part of jointly carried out research on trace elements in copper deposits of the Timok area in Serbia.
