Geochemical Atlas – Erzgebirge and Vogtland

Lead (Pb) shows a slightly right skewed log distribution. The arithmetic average is 74 mg/kg, the median 42 mg/kg.
A maximum concentration of 8460 mg/kg stands opposite a minima of 0.2 mg/kg. A major plumbiferous enrichment covers the gneiss dominated northeastern study area with a 15 km x 8 km core zone of Pb > 250 mg/kg at the central Freiberg mining district and extending into the Halsbrücke, Brand-Erbisdorf and Muldenhütten sub districts. In the southeastern part of the Freiberg mining district even Pb > 1000 mg/kg are reached, which, together with strongly elevated Sn and Zn levels, might indicate industrial contamination. Pb was mined and processed for decades as either as a main target or a by-product of Ag and other metals. Furthermore, an N striking area 3 km NE of the Sadisdorf deposit also exhibits Pb > 250 mg/kg. Together with the Freiberg mining district, the entire region is enclosed by a 40 km aureole of Pb > 100 mg/kg. In contrast, in the central Erzgebirge, areas of Pb > 60 mg/kg coincide only slightly with the major polymetallic mining districts like Annaberg-Buchholz, Marienberg-Wolkenstein, Ehrenfriedersdorf, Schneeberg and Schwarzenberg. Notwithstanding, Pb is almost equally elevated across the mica schist dominated northern parts of the study area without well-known mineralisations e.g. between the deposits of Langenstriegis and Augustusburg and in the narrow NW-striking zone between the Thum deposit and Stollberg. The entire “tin corridor” between the deposits of Ehrenfriedersdorf and Augustusburg is co-enriched in Pb. Elevated contents seem to be truncated by the Gera-Jachymov-Fault Zone towards the SW where even the Sn mining district of Gottesberg does not show relevant Pb levels. Minima of Pb < 16 mg/kg occur in the Fichtelgebirge granite, in adjacent Cambrian metasediments, and in the western and northern Eibenstock granite.