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Mercury Deposits 

in Turkey

g GEOLOGICALSURVEYBULLETIN1456

G

S Prepared in cooperation with

s Maden Tetkik ve. Arama Enstitusii

no-

Mercury Deposits

in Turkey

By MEHMET YILDIZ and EDGAR H. BAILEY

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 1456

Report prepared in cooperation with 

Maden Tetkik ve Arama Enstitusu

Mineralogy, geologic setting, size-grade of 

mercury ore bodies; brief history of 

productive mines

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON : 1978
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

CECIL D. ANDRUS, Secretary

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

H. William Menard, Director

Library of Congress catalog-card No. 78-600147

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office 

Washington, D. C. 20402

Stock Number 024-001-03134-5
CONTENTS

	Page

Abstract -_-_._._._-_-_-_._._-_._._-_-_-_---_-_-_._-_-_---------_._._-- 1

Introduction ._._._._._-_._._._._._-_-_-_-_-_-----_-_._---_-_-----_---_ 1

Number and location of deposits .__----_-_ ._-_-_-_-_._-_-_-__-._ ._._ 2

History of mining -_-_-_-_---_-_-_-----_-_-----_-_-_-_---_---------_---- 3

Mercury deposits -_._-_-_._._-_-_---_-_-_---_-_-_-_-_-_----------__.--- 6

Geologic framework -_._._.___._---_-_-_-_ -_-_-_--.--_-___._-_-_-_ 6

Host rocks ____-_-_-___________---_-_-_---_-_-___-_-_-_-_---_-_-_-_ 10

Mineralogy ------------.-----.- ~------------------------^.------ 10

Size and grade ---_._..--...-._._._._._-_-___-_-_-_-_____._-_-_--._ 12

Origin and localization ._._._-_-_-_-_._-_-_-_-_-_-_._-_-_-_-_._.--_ 12

Descriptions of areas and mines -_-_-_-_-___---_-_-_-_-----_-_-_-------_ 14

Karaburun area -_._._._._ -_-_-_-_-_ -_-_-_-_ -_-_-_-,. 14

Karaburun mine (1) ._._.___---_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_._.--_-_-_._-_-_-_ 14

Karareis mine (2) ._._._._._-_-_---_-_-_-_-_._-_-_-_-_._._-_._-_ 20

Dikengik mind (3) -..-._ ._-.._..._._._._._._._._._._.___ 21

Tire area -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_---_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ ---_---_._ 23

Habibler mine (4) ._._._._-----_-_---_-_---_._._._..-.._..._._-- 24

Akmesc.it mine (5) .___._ ._-_.___._ -_._._ ._ ._._._ 24

Helvaci deposits (6) ._._._._-_._._._ -___-_-_._ -_._._ 26

Odemis. area -_-_-_-_,_._-_-_._-_-_-_-_---_-_-_._._-_._-----_-_-_-_ 26

Halikoy mine (7) .........----_._.-._.----.._.---_.-._.- .-.. 27

Tiirkomi mine (8) ._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.. 30

Qamlica deposits (9) ._._._._._._-_-_-_-_._-_-_-_-_-_._-_._._._._ 32

Kahvedere deposit (10) ._ ....._......._._..............._.... 32

Salihli area ........ .. ._........ .... ..................... 32

Salihli deposits (11) ....._._..............._......._....._...... 35

Alagehir area -_-_-_-_-_._-_-_---_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_.- 35

Ala§ehir mine (12) ._._.___-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_._._-_-_-_-_-_._ 35

Murat Dagi area -_-_-_-_-_-_._---_._-_---_-_-_-_._---_-_-_.___-_-_ 39

Baltali group (13) ............ ._..._.....__...... 40

Kestanelik Tepe mine (14) ._._._ __.__.,_._._.___-_-_ __ 44

Intepe mine (15) ._-_._-_._---_._-_-_-_-_-_-_._-_---_-_-_.--_-_ 45

Cigekli Kayasi Tepe mine (16) -_._-_-_-_-_-_._._-_-_.,____._._ 46

Agirsak Kayasi Tepe mine (17) ._-_._-_-_._-_-___._---_._-___._ 46

Karacahisar mine (18) -_-_---- -----_-_---_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_._-_ 47

Evrentdede deposits (19) ._._-_ -_-_-_ -_-_-_-_._._ -_.___ 50

Ivrindi area -_-_-_-_-_-_._-_-_-_-_-_-_-----_-_-_._._-_-_-_-_._-_-_-_ 50

Ivrindi occurrences (20) -__--_._-_-_-_-_-_-_._-_._-_-_-_._-_._-_ 50

Biga area -_-_-_-_-_-_._-_._-_._---_-_-_-_-_-_-_._-_-_-_---_-_-_._-_ 52

Hodul Koy mine (21) .......................................... 52

Izmit area -_-_-_-_-_-_..-_-_._-_-_._---_-_-_-_-_._-_._---_-_-_._-_ 53

Mudarli mine (22) ._._._._._._._._._._ ._._____._._._._.... 53

Sogiit area -_-_-_-_-_-_-_---_.___-_-_---_-_---_-_._._-_-_-___ --._ 55

Sbgiit occurrences (23) __._._ ._-_-___-_-_.___._._..___-_-_._-_._ 55

Inebolu area -_-_-_._-_-_-_-__--_-_-_-_-_-_-_-___-_-_-_-_-_-_..---_ 55

Seyhsaban mine (24) ._._- -_-_._-_-_-_-_._._-_-_._._-_._._ 56

ill
iv CONTENTS

Descriptions of areas and mines Continued Page

Konya area -_-_-_-_-_-___-_-_-_.._-_-_-_____________________________ 57

Sizma mines (25) __-_-_-_-_-_____-_-___-___-___-_-_-___________ 59

Ladik mines (26) ____ --. .__-- ___ __ ______ 65

Nigde area ________________________________________________________ 72

Gumiisler mine (27) __._._._._._._._._._______.___._._._.___ 73

Mehmetleryurdu Sivrisi Tepe mine (28) ______ -_-_____-___ 77

Other deposits __-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_____________-___-_-___________ 78

References cited _________________________________________________________ 78

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

FIGURE 1. Map of Turkey showing location of mercury deposits -_-_____ 5

2. Graph showing mercury production in Turkey, 1906-74 .___ 7

3. Map of Turkey showing the relation of the mercury areas to the

main structural provinces -___-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-___ 9

4. Map of the Karaburun Peninsula showing location of Karaburun, Karareis, and Dikengik mercury mines ._-___-___-___ 14

5. Photograph of Karaburun mine viewed looking south ________ 16

6. Geologic map and cross section of the Karaburun (Kalecik)

mine area __-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-___.._---_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ 19

7. Photograph showing workers removing "burnt" ore from retorts

at the Karaburun mine -_-_-_-___---_-_-_-_-_---_-_-_-_-_ 20

8. Generalized east-west section through Karareis mercury deposit ____-___-_-_._____________________-_-_-___.___ 22

9. Map of Tire area showing the location of the Habibler, Akmesc,it, and Helvaci mercury mines -_-_-_---------___-_-----_ 23

10. Geologic map showing Akmesc.it mine and other mercury occurrences nearby -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-___---_-_-_-_-_---_-_-_-- 25

11. Map of the gneiss-schist contact from the Halikoy mine to the

Kahvedere deposits ________._-_-_-_._- ._-_____-_-_._ 28

12. Map and section of Halikoy mine, 1964, from CENTO (1964) 29

13. Photograph of Halikoy furnace plant in 1966 ._-_-_-_-_._-_ 31

14. Map of the Qamlica mercury area _____--_-_-_-_---_-___---_ 33

15. Geologic map of the Kahvedere mercury area __-_._-_-_-_-_ 34

16. Geologic map of the area south of Alasehir showing the location 

of mercury and antimony deposits and outline of the Alasehir 

mine area -_-_-_______-_-___________-_-_-_-___._-_-_-_-_ 36

17. Geologic map of Ala§ehir mine area __---___-_-_-_-_-___---_ 37

18. Photograph of Alasehir mine camp and retort area ._-__--_-_ 38

19. Photograph showing bank of retorts in use at the Ala§ehir mine

in 1966 ______________._-___-___._ -___________ 38

20. Map of the Murat Dagi area northwest of Banaz showing areas 

covered by geologic maps of mercury occurrences (figs. 22, 24, 

and 27) ._.______.__._._._._ __._._.___._._._ ._._._ 39

21. Photograph showing the 150-tpd rotary furnace plant installed

near Banaz by Turkish Mercury Corp. in 1972 ._-_-_-_-___ 41

22. Map of part of the Murat Dagi area showing the geologic setting 

of the Maden Sivrisi Tepe, Qakiraz Tepe, Satilmis Tepe, and 

Kestanelik Tepe mercury mines __-_-_-_-_-_---___-_-----_ 42
CONTENTS v

Page

FIGURE 23. Photograph showing opencut developed in gentle dipping opalite at the Baltali Maden Sivrisi Tepe mine 44

24. Geologic map of an area including the Intepe, Qigekli Kayasi

Tepe, and Agirsak Kayasi Tepe mines -_-_-_-_-----_-_---_ 45

25. Photograph showing the spire of siliceous sinter(?) that contains

the Qigekli Kayasi Tepe ore deposit ._-_-_---_-----_-_-_-- 47

26. Photograph showing mined-out ore pipe in siliceous rock

(sinter?) at Qigekli Kayasi Tepe mine -_-___-_-_-_-_._-_-_ 48

27. Geologic map of the Karacahisar mine area -_-_-_---_-___-_ 49

28. Geologic map of the area about the Evrentdede mercury deposits _-_-_-_-_-_-_-___-_-_-_-___-_-_-_-___-_-_---_-_-_-_ 51

29. Photograph of Evrentdede mine portal in weathered silicacarbonate rock -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_---------_---- 52

30. Photograph of one of six 4-pipe retorts being used in 1973 to

treat ore from the Evrentdede mine __-_.________--_-___-_ 53

31. Geologic map and section of the Hodul Koy mine area ._._-_ 54

32. Geologic map of the §eyh§aban mine area __._-_ __-_._._ 57

33. Photograph of Sjeyhs.aban mine viewed looking north ._-_-_._ 58

34. Photograph of elaborate system of mercury-condensing troughs

on hillside above shaft furnace in use at Seyh§aban mine ._ 59

35. Map of an area northwest of Konya showing the geologic setting

of the Sizma and Ladik mines -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_._-_-_-_ 60

36. Photograph showing large opencut developed at the Biiyiik

mine in the early 1970's -_-_ -_-_-_-___.._-_-_-_-_-_-_ 61

37. Structure contours drawn on the phyllite-limestone contact of

the Biiyiik and Calic,a mines -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_---_-_-_-_-_ 63

38. Photograph showing shaft furnaces being used at the Biiyiik

mine -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-___ -_-_-___-_-_-_-__--_-_-_-_-_-_-_ 64

39. Photograph showing modern furnace plant installed by Etibank

south of Ladik to process ore from the Sizma and Ladik mines 66

40. Geologic map of the Cirakman mine area ._._-_._-_-_-_._-_ 68

41. Photograph of Cirakman mine area south of Ladik -_-_._._-_ 70

42. Photograph showing hearth of ancient mercury retort near

Cirakman mine -_-_-_._.._-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_---------_--.._-- 70

43. Drawing of ancient mercury "retort" site and reconstruction,

Cirakman mine area -_-_-_-_-___._-_-_____-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ 71

44. Photograph showing iron shaft furnace and ground-level condensing system in use at the Cirakman mine -_-_-_._-_-_ 72

45. Map of the Nigde area showing location of mineral deposits _- 74

46. Photograph showing ore sorting at Giimii§ler mine into

cinnabar-rich, stibnite-rich, and scheelite-rich piles ._._-_._ 76

47. Photograph showing hand-sorted ore from boxes to be charged

into Rossi-type retorts at the Gumii§ler mine -_-_-_-_._-_-- 77

48. Photograph showing inclined-pipe Rossi-type retorts being used

to recover mercury from hand-sorted ore at Giimiis.ler mine- 78

TABLES

Page

TABLE 1. Production of mercury in Turkey by years, 1923-74 ._._._._._ 6 

2. Summary of main features of mercury districts in Turkey ._._ 11

MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

By MEHMET YiLDiz 1 and EDGAR H. BAILEY

Abstract

Cinnabar was mined in Turkey for use as "paint" 8,000 years ago, and mercury 

metal was recovered in the Roman and possibly Greek eras. Modern production began 

early in the 20th century but remained small until the 1960's when rotary furnaces 

were installed. In 1974 Turkey produced more than 12,000 flasks of mercury, or about 

5 percent of the world output.

The more than 50 known mercury deposits and occurrences are in the west half of 

Turkey, and most are in the central easterly trending belt constituting the Anatolid 

province. The major productive deposits cluster in five areas; three of these near 

Konya, Karaburun, and Odemis have yielded respectively 37,000, 31,000, and 

26,000 flasks, about seven-eighths of the total recorded production.

The host rock for the ore is different for different deposits, and no variety seems 

clearly most favorable. Limestone is the host for the most productive ore bodies at 

Konya; silicined sandstone, tuff, and phyllitic shale contain the next most productive 

on the Karaburun Peninsula; and mica schist and gneiss are the hosts for the Odemis. 

deposits. Everywhere cinnabar is the chief mercury mineral, but metacinnabar, native mercury, and swatzite occur in minor amounts. Pyrite is present in most deposits, marcasite in about half. Quartz is the common gangue mineral.

The ore and gangue minerals occur chiefly as fillings of fractures and are believed 

to have been deposited at shallow depth from warm ascending water. None of the 

deposits has been mined at depths greater than 150 m; in most places, however, ore 

potential at greater depth was not tested. On the basis of typical erosion rates, we 

believe that none of the ore is older than Tertiary.

INTRODUCTION

Cinnabar is believed to have been mined in Turkey 8,000 years 

ago for use as "paint," and archaeological evidence indicates that 

mercury metal was recovered from the sulfide ore near Konya in 

Roman times or possibly even hundreds of years earlier by the 

Greeks (Barnes and others, 1972). Thus it may be that both cinnabar mining and mercury production first originated in Turkey. 

Despite these ancient beginnings, large-scale sustained mining of 

mercury was not done until recent years. Since 1969, however, production has been at a rate of more than 5,000 flasks per year and in 

1974 reached a peak of more than 12,000 flasks, or about 5 percent 

of the world output. In 1974 several mines were equipped with modern rotary furnaces having a capacity exceeding 150 tons per day.

'Mercury commodity specialist, Maden Tetkik ve Arama Enstitusu (MTA), Ankara, Turkey.
2 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

Despite the advanced state of the industry, no comprehensive report on the mercury deposits is available in English; Yildiz (1967) 

and the Maden Tetkik ve Arama Enstitiisii (MTA) (1969) have provided short descriptions of most deposits in Turkish. Some brief 

summary reports are available (Ryan, 1957; Bekisoglu, 1968; MTA, 

1970), and for many deposits, unpublished reports are on file at 

MTA in Ankara. This report summarizes data on all known mines 

and occurrences, giving a brief description of their geologic setting, 

mineralogy, general character and size, and a historical sketch of 

their development, mining, production, and status in 1974. It has 

been prepared chiefly by Mehmet Yildiz, a mercury commodity 

specialist for Maden Tetkik ve Arama Enstitiisii, the Geological 

Survey of Turkey, assisted by E. H. Bailey, a mercury specialist for 

the U.S. Geological Survey. Yildiz has studied virtually all of the 

deposits over a period of years, whereas Bailey has studied in some 

detail the mines of the Konya area but has visited only briefly the 

other deposits.

NUMBER AND LOCATION OF DEPOSITS

The locations of all known mercury deposits and occurrences in 

Turkey, whether productive or not, are shown on figure 1. Where 

several deposits are being mined in a single operation or deposits 

are so closely spaced that separation at map scale is impossible, an 

individual symbol represents more than one. Thus there are a few 

more deposits than indicated by the 50 symbols on the map, but the 

pattern correctly depicts all known areas of mercury deposits. Of the 

50 deposits known, about half have some production and 17 have 

yielded more than 100 flasks2 of mercury. The major productive deposits are in five clusters; three of which those near Karaburun, 

6demi§, and Konya have each yielded more than 25,000 flasks of 

mercury.

Geographically, the most striking aspect of mercury distribution 

in Turkey is its restriction to the west half of the country, as there 

are no occurrences known east of a line drawn from Sinop to Adana. 

Most of the occurrences and larger deposits are in the south half of 

Turkey; the single exception to this generality is the §eyh§aban 

deposit near the Black Sea, with a production of 1,500 flasks.

"Mercury is customarily marketed in a steel cylinder or flask containing 76 pounds of the liquid metal; hence, 

the flask is the international unit of trade. There are approximately 34.5 kg to a flask and 28.5 flasks to a metric 

ton.
MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY 3

HISTORY OF MINING

Mining of mercury deposits in Turkey in antiquity has already 

been mentioned and is described in more detail under the discussion 

of the Konya area where there is archaeological evidence of both 

pre-Bronze Age and Greek or Roman mining. From Roman times 

until about 1900, some cinnabar ores doubtless were sporadically 

mined and retorted in Turkey, but owing to the lack of written records, all that remain to attest to this are slumped and caved workings, old dumps, and rumors.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the deposits at Halikoy 

and Habibler were known (Weiss, 1901), and by 1904 the ancient 

Sizma mine had been rediscovered (Sharpless, 1908). In 1902 a 

British company began mining at the Karaburun deposit, and by 

1905 the Sizma mine was put into production. By means of shaft or 

tower furnaces, the Karaburun deposit is reported to have yielded 

more than 16,000 flasks of mercury before World War I, and the 

Sizma deposit has a production of at least half this amount. During 

this period, mining, hand sorting, and retorting in other areas also 

led to mercury recovery, but data regarding production from specific 

deposits are not available, as official records have been kept only 

since 1923.

During the interval from the beginning of World War I (1914) to 

the end of World War II (1946), despite three periods of relatively 

high mercury prices (1914-19; 1926-31; 1939-45), only the Karaburun deposit had steady and significant production. In the early 

1950's, at the time of the Korean war and active stockpiling in the 

United States, the price of mercury began to rise, and after 1965 it 

skyrocketed to a record high level and was maintained at or near 

that level until 1970. In the mid-1950's the Karaburun, Karareis, 

and Sizma mines each produced a few hundred flasks through retort 

or shaft furnace operation, and prospecting by MTA and private 

companies was accelerated. In 1962 a modern rotary furnace was 

installed at the Halikoy mine, and in the following year it began a 

steadily increasing production that has continued into 1975. After 

the dramatic price increase in 1965, large furnaces were installed at 

the Karareis (1966), Turkonii (1968), Sizma (1969, 1970), and 

§eyh§aban (1971) deposits and at Banaz (1972) to process ores from 

the deposits of the Murat Dagi area. At the Halikoy mine additional 

furnaces were added; at many small deposits activity increased and 

modest production was obtained from retorts. As a result of emphasis on mercury mining, Turkey's production rose from nothing in
MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY
HISTORY OF MINING

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1953 to more than 1,000 flasks in 1956, exceeded 2,000 flasks in 

1960, and increased almost steadily to a peak of 12,016 flasks in 

1974, the last year for which production records are available (fig. 2 

and table 1).

TABLE 1. Production of mercury in Turkey by years, 1923-74

(Data from published reports of Turkish Mining Department. , none reported] 

Year Flasks Year Flasks Year Flasks

1923 __..

1924 ___.

1925 ....

1926 ....

1927 - ..

1928 ___.

1929 ....

1930 ....

1931 ....

1932 ....

1933 ....

1934 ....

1935 ....

1936 ....

1937 .__.

1938 . ..

1939 ....

1940

6

... 226

100

. 161

126

.._ 239

... 545

.._ 239

.._ 23

.._ 42

 25

... 815

.._ 483

597

 395

481

1941 __.

1942 .__

1943 

1944 

1945 

1946 .__

1947 

1948 

1949 

1950 

1951 

1952__.

1953 

1954 

1955 

1956 

1957 

..__ 354

.__ 271

_ 186

 97

_ 158

_

. 98

_ 27

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_ 261

._ 840

 1,079

. 720

1958

1959

1960___

1961

1962___

1963

1964 

1965

1966__.

1967

1968

1969.

1970

1971___

1972

1973 ___

1974

Total

1,626

1,466

2,143

___ 1,863

2,680

3,049

_ 2,582

2,874

3,284

4,476

4,791

___ 6,540

___ 9,402

 10,351

7,636

8,900

 12,016

 64,112

MERCURY DEPOSITS

GEOLOGIC FRAMEWORK

The mercury deposits in Turkey, like the deposits of Europe, Asia, 

and North America (Bailey, 1959; Bailey and others, 1973), occur in 

a large variety of rock types and diverse local structural settings. 

The Turkish deposits are, however, confined to certain major structural belts, as are the deposits on other continents, and even though 

this structural association is not well understood, the relations established empirically can be of value in deciding where to look for 

new deposits.

The complex geology of Turkey is summarized briefly here to indicate the relation of the mercury deposits to the main geologic provinces. Turkey is part of the vast Alpine-Himalayan mountain chain 

that was formed by early to middle Tertiary deformation and uplift 

of rocks that accumulated in the Tethyan trough in Mesozoic time. 

In terms of plate-tectonic concepts, this comparatively recent deformation that dominates the present geologic framework is the result 

of the convergence of the large rigid Eurasian and Afro-Arabian 

plates. The borders of these plates, however, contained Paleozoic
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8 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

rocks previously deformed in the earlier Caledonian or Hercynian 

orogeny, and these rocks are exposed in Turkey. The framework 

formed as a result of these orogenies is as yet not wholly understood, 

especially where tectonic belts overlap, but there is general agreement that Turkey can be divided into four major regions having distinctive lithologic and tectonic characteristics.

The major geologic regions, as described by Ketin (1966), Evans 

(1971), Kamen-Kaye (1971), and other workers, are the Pontid, 

Anatolid, Taurid, and Border Fold regions shown in figure 3.

The Pontid region includes most of the older rocks in Turkey that 

have undergone deformation in the Caledonian, Hercynian, and early 

Alpine orogenies: Paleozoic sedimentary rocks, granitic masses, 

considerable mafic volcanic rock of Late Cretaceous and Eocene 

age, and sparse ultramafic rock. Since Oligocene time, the region 

has been a highland and the site of only minor volcanic activity. A 

few mercury deposits have been found in this region, but all are 

relatively small and unproductive.

The central Anatolid region is dominated by Upper CretaceousPaleocene eugeosynclinal lithologies and much ophiolite and 

blueschist (van der Kaaden, 1966, 1971), especially in its northwestern part. Some granite was emplaced in Late Cretaceous; soon 

thereafter, in the middle Alpine orogeny, this belt underwent its 

greatest deformation. Since that time the belt has been a continental landmass on which there have been numerous middle Tertiary 

and Holocene volcanic eruptions. All the major .mercury mines lie 

within this region (fig. 3).

The Taurid region borders the southern Mediterranean coast and 

extends eastward to encompass the area about Lake Van. In this 

region Paleozoic sediments, largely metamorphosed to greenschistfacies rocks, are overlain by a thick Mesozoic marine sequence containing much limestone. Ultramafic rocks and other members of the 

ophliolite suite, believed to be Cretaceous in age, are abundant and 

widespread. Deformation began in early Alpine time and was very 

intense in the Oligocene; since that time the area has stood above 

sea level. Late Tertiary and younger volcanic rocks are predominant 

only in the eastern part near Lake Van. In spite of what would appear to be a favorable tectonic setting, no mercury mineralization 

occurs in the Taurid region.

That part of Turkey bordering Syria and Iraq lies in a geologic 

region referred to as the Border Fold belt. Since Cambrian time this 

area has been one of nearly continuous deposition of shallow-marine 

sedimentary rocks along the edge of the Arabian shield, and these 

strata remain neither intruded nor metamorphosed. During late 

Eocene to Miocene time, the rocks were strongly folded and locally
MERCURY DEPOSITS

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10 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

thrust-faulted by underthrusting of the Arabian shield beneath the 

rocks of the Taurid zone. The Border Fold rocks locally contain oil 

pools but do not contain mercury deposits.

HOST ROCKS

Although the mercury deposits are chiefly confined to the Anatolid 

region, they occur in many different kinds of sedimentary, igneous, 

and metamorphic rocks. Limestone is the host rock for the most productive ore bodies near Konya; silicified sandstone, tuff, and phyllitic shales contain the next most productive deposits on the Karaburun Peninsula; and mica schist and gneiss are the hosts for the 

Odemis. deposits, which ultimately may prove to be the largest in 

Turkey. Other deposits occur in volcanic flows, tuffs silicified to form 

opalite, and silica-carbonate rock formed from serpentine (table 2).

MINERALOGY

The mineralogy of the mercury ores is generally simple, but in a 

few deposits antimony, arsenic, and tungsten minerals have been 

found (table 2). Cinnabar is the only economically important mercury mineral in all of the ore bodies, but minor amounts of metacinnabar, native mercury, and the mercurial variety of tetrahedrite 

named schwatzite have been identified. The cinnabar is generally 

fine grained, but at the §eyh§aban and Sizma deposits it occurs locally in 1-mm crystals. Iron sulfides are nowhere abundant; pyrite 

has been seen in most deposits, and marcasite is reported to occur in 

about half of them. Stibnite is found in small amounts in a halfdozen deposits, and in the Nigde area is locally abundant enough to 

form ore in which cinnabar is a deleterious contaminant. Both at 

Nigde and at the §eyh§aban mine, stibnite occurs in small crystals 

coated by later cinnabar. The arsenic sulfides, realgar and orpiment, 

though nowhere common, have been seen in a few deposits; but 

arsenopyrite, reported from two localities, has not been identified 

by us.

The common gangue mineral is quartz, found in every deposit, 

generally showing both pre- and post-cinnabar deposition. Carbonates are not so common, but calcite occurs in the three largest deposits, and dolomite has been identified in the Karaburun ores. Clay 

minerals of unknown species accompany the ores in several deposits. 

Purple, pale-blue, and white flourite occurs locally in the ores of 

both the Sizma and Ladik deposits in the Konya area, but its relation to the mercury minerals has not been established. A little barite has been seen in two of the mercury deposits. Scheelite occurs 

only in the Giimu§ler deposit of the Nigde area, but here it is in 

coarsely crystalline clots in marble in sufficient abundance to have 

been mined and processed to form a tungsten ore concentrate (Wen-
TABLE 2. Summary of main features of mercury distric

Area

Karaburun

Tire - _

6demi§ - .

Salihli __ ...

Alasehir ---

Murat Dagi

Ivrindi ... ..

Biga

Izmit --------

Sogiit - - -

Inebolu -----

Konya ------

Aksarav

Nigde

Production 

Number thru 1974 

of mines (flasks)

. _ - 3

.... . 3

----- -- 4

. ____ 1

.. _ . 1

.. . - . 6

.. _ - 1

. . -- 1

 . . - 1

.. . ... 1

.. . ... 1

.. --- 4

.. - ... 1

2

Mercury ore minerals 

Hg native mercury

C cinnabar

metac metacinnabar

schw schwatzite

Other sulfides

ar arsenopyrite

m marcasite

orp orpiment

py pyrite 

pyrr pyrrhotite

rg realgar

so stibnite

tetrah tetrahedrite

31,000

OKfl £\j\)

26,000

50

3,000

8,000

_

200

200

1,500

37,000

___

300

Mercury ore 

minerals

C, metac,

Hg, schw

C, Hg, metac

C

C

C

C

C, Hg

C

C

C

C, metac,

Hg, schw

C

C

Other 

sulfides

py, m, ar

py, m

py, m

py, sb, m, ar,

pyrr 

py, sb, m, rg

py, m

_

py

py .

py, sb

py, sb, rg

py, sb, rg,

orp, tetrah

py ,

py, sb, rg

Gangue minerals 

bar barite

cal calcite

cly clay

dol dolomite

fluor fluorite

qtz quartz

schl scheelite

Host rocks

cgl conglomerate 

gn gneiss

1ms limestone

qtzite quartzite

sch schist

Gangue 

minerals

qtz, cal, dol, cly

qtz, cly

qtz, cly

qtz

qtz, cly

qtz

qtz

qtz

qtz

qtz, schl

qtz

qtz, cal, fluor,

bar, Cu-oxides

qtz

qtz, schl, cal, bar

silica-carb silica-carbonate rock

ss sandstone
12 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

del, 1967). The scheelite was clearly deposited before the accompanying cinnabar and stibnite, and it is believed by Dennis (1970) 

to have formed in a different period of mineralization.

SIZE AND GRADE

As indicated by the records of production (table 1), none of the 

mercury ore bodies in Turkey is exceptionally large or rich. The 

grade mined is essentially a reflection of the prevailing prices, as 

lower grade ore is economic at times of high mercury prices. The 

largest ore body apparently was that of the Biiyiik mine in the 

Konya area, which, after initial mining of rich pockets, was ultimately mined out in an open pit measuring about 100 m x 100 m x 

40 m. The average grade of the ore is unknown but from the production record can be calculated to have been about 2.5 pounds to the 

ton, or less than 0.15 percent. Ore containing less than 0.1 percent 

was put through the large rotary furnaces in the early 1970's.

The ore body mined in the open cut at the Karaburun mine had 

dimensions of about 80 m x 40 m x 40 m and ranged in grade from 

0.1-0.3 percent. Halikoy ore bodies are tabular along a fault zone, 

some extending more than 100 m in length, 60 m downdip, and having variable widths to 30 m. The average grade of the ore being 

mined in 1966 was 0.3 percent, and at times of very high mercury 

price it was even less, as lower grade material from the edges of the 

ore bodies was included. The Karareis ore is typically a little richer 

and at times averaged more than 1 percent without sorting, but the 

ore zone rarely exceeds 1 m in width. At the smaller deposits, where 

retorts rather than furnaces are utilized, ore is generally sorted to 

contain more than 1 percent mercury the grade necessary for an 

economical small-scale operation.

ORIGIN AND LOCALIZATION

The cinnabar that has transformed barren rock into mercury ore 

bodies in Turkey in most places fills or coats the walls of fractures or 

other openings in the host rocks, generally accompanied by quartz. 

In the richer ores it also has replaced quartz, calcite, or other minerals along the walls of the openings. It is clear that the openings, 

though small in some places, provided the passageways for ascending waters that carried and deposited the cinnabar and the introduced gangue minerals. The waters were doubtless warm (100° to 

200°C) and alkaline, and contained enough sodium sulfide to hold the 

mercury temporarily in solution as a sulfide, as calculations by Krauskopf (1951) have shown that dilute waters of this character are 

the only expectable natural waters that can transport and deposit 

significant amounts of mercury sulfide. Further, the experiments
MERCURY DEPOSITS 13

of Dickson and Tunell (1958, 1959) and Dickson (1964) demonstrate 

that such waters, saturated with mercury sulfide, would, on meeting 

ground water, precipitate cinnabar because of cooling or dilution. 

Tunell (1970) suggests that precipitation could also be caused by 

reaction with wallrocks, by solution of silica, or by oxidation. As 

they approach the surface, rising hot solutions normally will meet 

ground water and other environmental changes, and it is in the 

near-surface zone that cinnabar, or in some cases metacinnabar, 

would most likely be precipiated. The shallow character of mercury 

deposits throughout the world supports this origin, as few deposits 

extend to depths of more than 300 m, and none is known to reach 

1,000 m.

The shallow depositional environment for mercury deposits has a 

further corollary when considered in terms of normal rates of erosion. Unless protected by a postore cover, a typical mercury deposit 

once formed would generally be removed by erosion in a relatively 

short span of geologic time. Typical continental erosion rates probably lie between 20 m and 50 m per million years (Gilluly and others, 

1970); at this rate a mercury deposit that initially extended to 1,000 

m depth would be completely eroded in 20-50 m.y., less than the 

span of Tertiary time. Thus, most mercury deposits seen today are 

no older than Tertiary, and few are older than middle Tertiary. New 

deposits should be sought in areas where warm solutions were rising 

through the earth during this time, mainly those areas having 

major igneous or tectonic activity since the early Tertiary.

Other ideas regarding where to look for ore bodies can be gained 

from a consideration of geologic structure relative to the rising oreforming solutions. Clearly a passageway for the rising solutions is 

necessary, and this commonly will be a fractured zone along a fault. 

Where solutions rising in the fault zone reach the level of cool 

ground water, ore may be found in the fault zone, and major deposits in Turkey, like those of the Halikoy or Karaburun mines, may 

have formed this way. Not uncommonly a flexure in strike of an 

inclined fault forming an inverted trough will be enough to collect 

the solutions rising along the fault and bring about precipitation in 

the axis of the flexure. Where solutions rise through pervious or 

fractured rock and reach an area of trapping or stagnation, such as 

beneath a shale bed, ore may be formed because of the additional 

time available for reaction with the wallrock or ground water. An 

example of the effectiveness of this kind of trap is provided by the 

rich ore bodies in the limestone just beneath shale at the Biiyuk 

mine at Sizma, and here the solutions were further collected in those 

areas at the high axial parts of anticlinal warps in the contact.
14 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES (MINES NUMBERED

AS ON FIG. 1)

KARABURUN AREA

The Karaburun area is on the Karaburun Peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea near the center of the west coast of Turkey. 

It lies within the Karaburun township of the Izmir province about 

60 km west of Izmir. Here steep mountains with prominent exposures of white Paleozoic limestone rise abruptly from the seashore to 

altitudes of more than 1,000 m. The area contains three mines that 

together have yielded about 30,000 flasks of mercury, or roughly 

one- third of the country's total, and several other as yet unproductive deposits (fig. 4).

KARABURUN MINE (1)

The Karaburun mine, also called the Kalecik mine after a nearby 

village, is probably the second most productive mercury mine in 

Turkey. It is near the northern tip of the Karaburun Peninsula, 

about 4 km southwest of the seaside city of Karaburun. It is acFIGURE 4. The Karaburun Peninsula showing location of Karaburun, Karareis, and

Dikencik mercury mines.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 15

cessible from Izmir by 100 km of good road extending along the edge 

of Izmir Bay to Karaburun, followed by several kilometers of poorer 

steep roads that climb up the mountainside to the mine, nearly 450 

m above sea level (fig. 5).

The geology of the Karaburun Peninsula has been studied by 

Kalafatcioglu (1961), and more detailed geology of the mine area as 

mapped by Yildiz is shown on figure 6. The oldest rocks, exposed just 

west of the mineralized area, are generally schistose clastic sedimentary rocks of probable Ordovician age and limestone of Devonian age more than 2,000 m thick (Ktenas, 1925). In fault contact 

with these rocks in the mine area is a sequence of steeply dipping 

beds of sandstone, conglomerate, tuff, and schist, to 200 m thick, 

constituting the Kalecik Formation of Triassic(?) age. Silicified parts 

of this formation contain the ore bodies. East of the mine, broken 

Jurassic limestone overlies the Triassic rocks.

About 3 km northwest of the mine is a stock of Paleozoic(?) granite intruding the older rocks, and a little Mesozoic(?) serpentine occurs along a fault west of the ore body. Several of the higher peaks 

are capped with basalt of Miocene(?) age, which prior to erosion probably blanketed much more of the area, and slightly older beds of 

tuff, clay, and marl occur near the city of Karaburun. As the ore is 

younger than the basalt, none of these igneous rocks seems to have a 

genetic relation to the mercury ore.

The rocks were deformed and faulted in the Alpine orogeny, which 

Kalafatcioglu (1961) states began here in latest Cretaceous time 

and continued into Tertiary time. The absence of strong folding in 

the basalt suggests that since the middle Tertiary volcanism deformation has consisted chiefly of uplift. The most prominent fault in 

the area trends northwestward past the west edge of the ore deposit, 

separating the Paleozoic sedimentary rocks from those of Mesozoic 

age; it is offset in many places by faults striking to the northeast or 

east.

The chief ore mineral is cinnabar. Metacinnabar, schwatzite (mercurian tetrahedrite), and native mercury have been reported to 

occur (MTA, 1970) but were not found during our studies. Other 

sulfides are abundant fine-grained pyrite, some marcasite, and rare 

arsenopyrite. Abundant quartz, both as replacement of rock and as 

vein filling, is conspicuous in the ore, and a little calcite and dolomite are present.

Apparently only one main ore body has been mined. It was peanut 

shaped and has largely been removed through development of a 

northeasterly trending open pit 60 m wide, 120 m long, and 60 m 

deep. Wallrocks are strongly silicified dark-colored tuff, sandstone, 

pyrite-bearing phyllite, and local white quartzite breccia. In these
16 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

silicified rocks, cinnabar occurred as veinlets, fracture fillings, scattered crystals, and masses. Where it is in veinlets, it may be accomFIGURE 5. Karaburun mine viewed looking south. Most ore was mined in open pit in 

center of picture above retort and camp buildings in foreground.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 17

panied by quartz; some is deposited in fractures in older, barren, and 

brecciated quartz-pyrite veins. Serpentine bordering the ore body 

remained little altered but locally contains a few veinlets of cinnabar, as does some nearby argillized basalt (Yildiz, 1969). The 

richest ore is reported to have been confined to zones striking westnorthwest and east-northeast. The average grade of the main ore 

body mined before World War I was reported to be 0.54 percent, and 

the actual metal recovered during the processing of more than 

120,000 tons of ore indicates that this figure is essentially correct. 

Later mining produced about 29,000 tons with a recovered average 

grade of 0.45 percent.

The ore deposit is epithermal, containing chiefly mercury sulfide 

and quartz deposited from rising hot solutions. A channelway for the 

rising solutions was provided by the major northwest-trending fault 

passing near the west edge of the ore zone, but the major deposition 

was along the intersecting northeast-trending fractures. It seems 

likely that the ore was deposited just beneath the basalt flow that 

once extended above the ore zone but is now, as a result of erosion, 

found only as remnant patches on the hills about the deposit (see 

cross section, fig. 6). The localization of the ore below a blanket of 

basalt, probably as a result of trapping or rising solutions, doubtless 

explains why the ore at the surface was the richest, and why 

exploratory drilling has failed to find deeper ore bodies below the ore 

mined in the open pit.

The date of discovery of the Karaburun deposit is unknown, but 

modern mining was begun by a British company in 1902 (Ryan, 

1957). By May 1906 the company had erected two Spirek shaft furnaces for processing coarse ore and one Czermak-Spirek furnace for 

finer ore and were producing 100 flasks a month, later increased to 

250 flasks per month (Eng. and Mining Jour., 1908). During their 8 

years of operation (1906-14), 122,000 tons of ore was treated (fig. 7), 

yielding 16,326 flasks of mercury.

During this early period the mine seems to have been developed 

nearly to its present state. In addition to the large pit, there is a 

haulage adit, 500 m long, about 25 m below the pit, and shorter 

workings have been driven for additional haulage or exploration, 

aggregating perhaps another 500 m. A small amount of underground stoping is reported to have been done from one of these.

In 1927 the property was sold to a Polish company, which recovered only 407 flasks prior to selling to Turkish interests in 1936. 

From 1936 to 1948 mercury was recovered through retorting, but 

with constantly decreasing output as the supply of ore at the edge of 

the old pit became smaller in quantity and lower in grade. In this 

period, 1936-48, production is recorded as 3,726 flasks recovered
18 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY
EXPLANATION

V V V 

V V V

£'/ :':£ ':'

^iC^

^^^

^-^~^;

1 1 ' i ' i ' 1

x^\

+ , + 

§H?S

Miocene(?) basalt /" '' Contact

Tertiary tuff, clay, and marl ^*** Fault

* ' 450- . 

Jurassic limestone "~7T

 ***"' Strike and 400- r ^ 

Triassic(?) sandstone, conglomerate, p ^ r> 

tuff, and schist {Kalecik Formation) 300- ^ ^ ^ 

Middle Devonian limestone y*

Ordovician(?) graywacke, conglomerate, ^^Road 

quartzite, and siliceous schist .^^^^

(Denizgiren Formation) '

Granite

^^5>>> - o ,<«^3 Village 

Serpentine ^^^Sf

FIGURE 6. Geologic map and cross section of the Karaburu
20 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

from 28, 931 tons of ore. When the price of mercury rose in 1955, the 

mine was worked again; it operated for a few years, treating ore 

initially in an old cascade-type furnace, and later in several twopipe, pan-charged horizontal retorts. From 1955 to 1963 production 

was only 729 flasks. When the mine was visited in 1966, two retorts 

were being operated (fig. 7) and production was said to be at a rate of 

about 30 flasks a month. After 1969 the Turkish Mining Corp. took 

the mine over, and exploratory drilling and other work was done by 

MTA. In 1973, after additional exploration, the Turkish Mining 

Corp. started working the mine again, hauling the best ore to a furnace near Banaz and stockpiling the leaner ore at the mine. Owing 

to the drop in price, this operation was short lived.

KARAREIS MINE (2)

The Karareis mine is very close to the Aegean shore on the west 

side of the Karaburun Peninsula, less than 20 km southwest of 

Karaburun in a straight line, but nearly 60 km by road (fig. 4). Its 

total production since modern mining began in 1955 is about 9,700 

flasks of mercury.

The rocks of the area consist of two sedimentary formations. The 

older is the Denizgiren Formation, composed of alternating layers of 

Ordovician(?) micaceous or graphitic schist and sandstone that dip 

westward near the mine. It is unconformably overlain by a Middle 

Devonian sequence of conglomerate, massive limestone, and siliFIGURE 7. Workers removing "burnt" ore from retorts at the Karaburun mine, 1966.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 21

ceous schist which dip to the east. The Denizgiren is cut by a 

northwest-trending fault that dips steeply to the east (fig. 8).

The dominant ore mineral is cinnabar, but some metacinnabar 

has been observed. Both pyrite and marcasite are present, and 

quartz is the common gangue mineral. The ore is mostly in a single 

rich quartz-cinnabar vein about 1 m wide in the fault zone shown 

in the cross section; some occurs in bordering silicified dark-gray 

phyllite. The grade of the ore as mined is generally above 1 percent 

and in some areas reaches 20 percent. The vein has been mined for a 

few hundred meters along the strike and about 65 m downdip. The 

lowest part was mined at a depth of about 60 m below sea level; 

because of the inflow of seawater, mining at greater depth was prohibited.

Although a little mining had been done at Karareis in an early 

but unknown period, modern mining and retorting began in 1955 

under private operation. During the years 1955-57, the mine produced a reported 664 flasks, then remained virtually inoperative until 1964, when an English firm in association with Turkish owners 

resumed production on a small scale. In 1966 a 25-tpd rotary furnace was put in operation, yielding 6-10 flasks per day from handsorted ore. During the following period of high mercury price, the 

richest part of the deposit was removed. A working force of 190 men 

was employed, and in 1967 a production of 1,159 flasks was recovered 

from ore averaging 0.8 percent mercury. In 1970 the furnace was 

enlarged to a capacity of 50 tpd to offset a lowering of the price, but 

apparently mining was still not economic and production ceased. 

From late 1970 to 1972 some rich ore was hauled for processing to 

the Turkonii mine, near Odemis., but the amount of mercury recovered from it is not known.

The richness of the ore suggests that the search for other ore 

bodies along the same fault, or parallel faults nearby, might be rewarding.

DIKENCIK MINE (3)

The Dikengik mine, about 6 km north of the Karareis deposit, has 

produced less than 300 flasks of mercury since its discovery in 1967. 

Cinnabar occurs here in quartz veins along a fault in silicified 

Paleozoic schist, forming an ore zone 0.7 m wide and 75 m long. The 

ore is unique in Turkey in that it contains a considerable amount of 

native mercury, which makes it even richer than the otherwise similar ore of the nearby Karareis deposit.

The mine was operated with a bank of 10 inclined-pipe retorts, 

producing from hand-sorted ore about 250 flasks in the summers of 

1967 and 1968. A private company purchased the mine in 1970, and 

during that year and 1971 some ore was hauled to the furnaces at
W

Denizgiren 

Formation

	EXPLANATION

I JF^afr I Silicified schist and chert

I -^SIp, 1 Limestone

|3~LJ"EI| Micaceous and graphitic schist

|:3-r:Z~| Clayey schist

| . ' '. ': ; | Sandstone

£~~-*T Fault showing direction of movement

FIGURE 8. Generalized east-west section through 
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 23

Karareis and Turkonu, but the amount of mercury recovered from it 

is not known.

A few other small deposits found near the mine do not appear to 

be economic, but the richness of the main Dikengik ore encourages 

further search for minable ore in the area.

TIRE AREA

The Tire area, in western Turkey near the southern border of 

Izmir province, about 70 km southeast of Izmir, contains two mines 

that have produced a few hundred flasks of mercury, and at least 10 

unproductive deposits, as shown in figures 1 and 9.

The Tire area is one of rough topography with valleys that are 

both steep and deep; it is largely covered with soil and vegetation 

which hinder prospecting. Bedrock consists of Paleozoic high-grade 

schist and gneiss that make up a part of the Menderes Massif. In 

these metamorphic rocks the mercury minerals occur in relatively

FIGURE 9. Tire area showing the location of the Habibler, Akmesc.it, and Helvaci

mercury mines.
24 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

small and low-grade concentrations along parting planes, fractures, 

and fault zones.

HABIBLER MINE (4)

The small Habibler deposits are near the village of the same name 

17 km southwest of Tire. The area can be reached from Tire by a 

25-km-long jeep road, or alternatively from the Aydin-Izmir highway by travel on a similar road for 20 km. Several ore occurrences 

have been found on the margin of an upland plain extending east 

from the Habibler village, where bedrock of schist and gneiss is exposed along the upper edges of steeply incised valleys. The main 

deposit is on the south edge of the plain 1.5 km east of the village at 

an altitude of 700 m; other deposits occur farther east and 2 km to 

the north.

Cinnabar, the only ore mineral identified, occurs with quartz and 

pyrite in veinlets following cracks in silicified parts of graphitic 

schist. The veinlets are concentrated in zones 15-20 cm wide and 

extending generally eastward for only a few meters, but farther 

along their strike, new mineralized zones may appear. The average 

grade of hand-sorted ore is about 0.5 percent, but some veinlets a 

few centimeters thick are virtually pure cinnabar. Antimony and 

tungsten have been identified in the ores by spectrograph (H611, 

1966), but minerals containing these elements have not been identified.

The mercury occurrences here have been known for at least 75 

years (Weiss, 1901), but there is no record of early production. Beginning in the late 1960's, the mine was worked partly in a surface 

pit, partly by shallow trenches, and partly underground. Several 

hundred tons of sorted ore were hauled more than 300 km to U§ak, 

where they were retorted, yielding probably less than 100 flasks of 

mercury.

The main pit, a hundred meters of underground workings, and 

scattered trenches do not provide enough exposure to permit proper 

evaluation of the potential of the deposit, but it probably is small.

AKMESCIT MINE (5)

The small Akmesgit mine is about 500 m west of the village of the 

same name and about 20 km southwest of Tire; to reach it from Tire, 

one must travel over 30 km of jeep road. The deposit is at an altitude 

of more than 1,000 m in an area of rough topography and sparse 

vegetation. As shown on figure 10, the rocks of the area consist of 

schist and gneiss striking generally east and dipping northward, 

mostly at angles between 20° and 40°. Many faults and fractures,
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 25

KAPKAYANIK T. 

715-5

\ '>' 300 

Sjvri T. TU2TASI

\ V

X18

OrucuKboii 

972

^ -^5RN»>sJ AKMESgT -./ , \ ^$&&£5r^ ^ y.^

^'a l'^F»iynirKa^a T '$jjft${Vf.

Sehltt

8«rlclt« qucrtiiM

Calo«r*eui Khlft

EXPLANATION

24

^v Strlka and dip of foliation 

y CO Contact

N ^ Nx Fault, ihowlnf dip O 

* 868 Aitltuda of point In matori

X Morcury dapoalt with production 

X Marcury dapoilt without productton

FIGURE 10. Geologic map showing Akmesgit mine and other mercury occurrences

nearby.
26 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

most of which trend eastward, cut the metamorphic rocks.

The only ore mineral is cinnabar, which occurs with quartz and 

some pyrite as veinlets to 2 cm thick in mylonitized zones along 

faults cutting the augen gneiss. Th,e main production came from a 

discontinuously mineralized shear zone 20-40 cm wide extending for 

150 m along a fault that strikes east and dips steeply to the south.

After its discovery in 1964, the deposit was worked until 1967 by a 

private company that mined in surface workings and by use of a 

bank of three two-pipe retorts recovered 145 flasks of mercury. However, because of the altitude of the mine and difficulty of access, 

mining was carried on only during the 6 summer months each year. 

The fault zone as exposed at the surface over a length of more than 1 

km appears barren beyond the mined deposit, and the outlook for 

additional production is not encouraging.

Other occurrences of cinnabar in fractures along shear zones similar to that mined at Akmesc.it are found at Toplak, 2 km to the 

north, and at Sarikaya, another 2 km farther north (fig. 10). These 

deposits appear unpromising, but at least two flasks were recovered 

at Toplak and seven at Sarikaya.

HELVACI DEPOSITS (6)

In 1972 cinnabar was discovered in a few places near the village of 

Helvaci, about 30 km northwest of Tire and 35 km southeast of Izmir. The village is accessible by 14 km of jeep road extending from 

the Aydin-Izmir highway at Torbali, which is about 50 km southeast 

of Izmir. The mineralized area is reached by traveling 3 km south of 

the village along the jeep access road and then walking northeast 

along 1 km of trail extending down a valley. The main deposit is at 

an altitude of 470 m in an area largely forested by pines and 

traversed by a perennial stream. The rocks consist of mica schist 

and graphitic schist that strike northwest and dip at gentle angles 

to the southwest.

Cinnabar occurs in small quartz veins with some pyrite for about 

50 m along a shear zone in argillized sericitic quartzite. Some arsenopyrite also occurs along the zone, but its relation to the mercury 

mineralization is not clear. The mineralized zone strikes N. 70°-80° 

W., dips 55°-75° NE., and is only about 10 cm thick. Parts of it, 

however, contain as much as 2 percent mercury. It has been 

explored by a few trenches made under a cooperative program of the 

United Nations and MTA. No mining has been done, and exploration is too limited to determine the potential of the deposit.

ODEMIS AREA

Most of the mercury deposits of the Odemi§ area are in the eastern 

part of Izmir province, but one deposit is just across the border in
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 27

Aydin province. The area contains the Halikoy mine, in recent years 

the most productive mercury mine in Turkey, and several other productive deposits and prospects. All of the deposits are south or 

southeast of Odemis,, which is reached from Izmir via 120 km of good 

road.

The bedrock everywhere is a part of the Menderes Massif and consists of mica schist and augen granite gneiss of Paleozoic age. As 

the topography is only moderately rugged, access is quite good, but 

the geology is somewhat obscured by vegetation, soil, and alluvial 

deposits.

HALIKOY MINE (7)

The productive Halikoy mine is on the low north flank of the 

Aydin Mountains 4 km west of Beydag, about 30 km by road southeast of Odemis.. It was initially operated on a major scale after 1962, 

when Etibank, the State mining organization, began to operate a 

large rotary furnace, and through 1975 it had produced 28,863 flasks 

of mercury.

The geologic setting of the Halikoy ore deposit is very simple. 

Granitic gneiss dipping moderately to steeply northward lies in a 

conformable relation on an underlying mica schist, which generally 

has a similar attitude. The contact between the two rocks, however, 

is a clayey gouge zone to 35 m wide that has been interpreted as a 

northward-dipping thrust fault. The contact from Halikoy eastward 

for about 6 km is nearly straight and resembles a recent fault 

(CENTO, 1964); farther east it becomes very irregular and transgresses the foliation of the rocks both above and below it, suggesting 

that it is an older fault that has been involved in tight folding (see 

fig. ID.

Cinnabar and minor metacinnabar, accompanied by quartz, pyrite, and marcasite, occur in the gouge zone along the gneiss-schist 

contact as veinlets and disseminations and in sheared mica schist in 

the lower part of the zone (see fig. 12). Some of the rather abundant 

clay is probably hydrothermal rather than tectonically ground rock, 

and as the ore is richest below the clay, its presence served to guide 

or trap the ore solutions rising along the fault zone. Three main ore 

bodies have been mined. The largest is about 100 m long, 5 to 30 m 

thick, and extends downdip at least 60 m. Mining is done in several 

stopes reached by two main levels that are vertically 26 m apart. A 

third level 30 m deeper also is being used for ore extraction. The 

total length of the workings is about 3,000 m.

The Halikoy deposit seems to have been first worked on a small 

scale sometime prior to World War I (Weiss, 1901). Its modern development, however, came as a result of work by MTA, which drove
28 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

FIGURE 11. The gneiss-schist contact from the Halikoy mine to the Kahvedere

deposits.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 29

exploratory levels and raises in 1942, and in 1955 after additional 

drilling estimated a reserve of 240,000 tons of ore containing 0.4 

percent mercury, equivalent to 25,000 flasks. Etibank obtained the 

mining concession in 1958, and by 1962 had a 25-m-long (100 tpd) 

oil-fired rotary furnace in steady operation. In 1966 a second rotary

FIGURE 12. Map and section of Halikoy mine, 1964, from CENTO (1964).
30 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

furnace of the same size was installed, and in 1975 a 175-tpd furnace 

was moved here from the Sizma area (fig. 13). The grade of the ore 

processed depends on the prevailing price and cutoff in mining, but 

generally is between 0.15 and 0.3 percent. The production by 

Etibank is as follows:

Year Flasks Year Flasks

1958 No production 1967 2,319

1959 Do. 1968 2,155

1960 Do. 1969 2,640

1961 19 1970 2,900

1962 20 1971 2,905

1963 763 1972 2,930

1964, 1,008 1973 2,958

1965 1,254 1974 2,923

1966 1,944 1975 2.125

	Total through 1975 28,863

The outlook for the mine is very good, as the deposit has been 

mined only to a depth of less than 100 m below the outcrop; judged 

by its strike length and the strength of the ore-controlling fault, it 

should persist to considerably greater depth. Visible reserves in 

1976 were reported to be more than 300,000 tons of ore, equivalent 

to more than 15,000 flasks, and probable ore was regarded to be 

several times this amount. In addition, undeveloped occurrences are 

exposed at the surface at other places along the outcrop belt of the 

fault.

TURKONU MINE (8)

The Tiirkonii mine, which has produced nearly 7,000 flasks of 

mercury in recent years, is 8 km southeast of Odemi§ along the road 

leading to the Halikoy mine. The rock of the area is granitic augen 

gneiss, which is poorly exposed. Ore occurs where cinnabar accompanied by some pyrite is disseminated in a clayey zone along a fault 

that strikes east and dips to the north at a steep angle. The ore zone 

is about 500 m long, ranges in width from 1 to 5 m, and has been 

mined downdip on several levels.

At some forgotten date, the deposit was mined on a small scale 

and produced a little unrecorded mercury. In 1965 a private company began to investigate the deposit and by 1968 had installed a 

100-tpd rotary furnace; in 1970, a furnace of similar size was added. 

However, the ore supply has been inadequate to keep both furnaces 

in continuous operation, and part of the time they have been used to 

process ore hauled from other deposits. Mercury production was 

terminated in 1975, owing to low price, and in 1976 the furnace 

plant was used to process antimony ore.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 31

ha

C

a s>-< -S &

2 H

t- '3

i-H CO s &

CD 

CO 

05

K 

I

CO

O
32 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

CAMLICA DEPOSITS (9)

Near the village of Qamlica, about 20 km south of Odemis. and 12 

km west of the Halikoy mine, are at least 10 small mercury deposits. 

Some of these have yielded a little metal through retorting, but in 

1973 only one was worked. The aggregate production is probably no 

more than 100 flasks of mercury.

The rocks of the area include Paleozoic augen gneiss, graphitic 

and micaceous schist, gabbro, and minor quartzite of the Menderes 

Massif (fig. 14). Cinnabar, with some pyrite, occurs in small quartz 

veinlets and disseminations in the schist, especially along zones that 

have been bleached by hydrothermal solutions. Locally, where the 

veinlets are abundant, the ore is rich, but such areas of concentration are small and discontinuous. Despite the negligible known reserve, a profitable small-scale operation might be possible here if all 

the deposits were worked collectively and processed in a single retort.

KAHVEDERE DEPOSIT (10)

The Kahvedere deposit is in Nazilli township, Aydin province, 

about 15 km north of Nazilli and 25 km east of the Halikoy mine. 

The area is mountainous, and the deposits are at an altitude of 

nearly 1,000 m. The occurrence was discovered in 1971 and has no 

production. The area has been studied by MTA by geologic and 

geophysical means, and the most promising occurrences have been 

further explored and sampled by surface trenching.

The deposit is on the eastward continuation of the gneiss-schist 

contact that contains the Halikoy ore deposit, but here the contact is 

much more irregular (see fig. 11). The mineralization is the same 

type as at Halikoy, with cinnabar, pyrite, marcasite, and quartz 

being concentrated along the contact (fault?) zone. Although clay 

alteration along the contact zone in the augen gneiss is intense and 

extends outward nearly 1,000 m from the contact along cross faults 

(see fig. 15), no ore bodies comparable in size and grade to those at 

Halikoy have yet been found.

SALIHLI AREA

The Salihli area, which contains several mercury deposits with 

very small production, is near the south edge of Manisa province, 

about 100 km east of Izmir, from which it is readily reached by a 

good highway. As the area borders the Salihli plain and is relatively 

flat, the road network within the area is good. Geologically the area 

lies in the northern part of the Menderes Massif; the rocks here 

consist of a lower unit of biotite quartzite alternating with quartzmuscovite schist, an upper unit of bitumin schist with marble 

lenses, and intrusive granite and granite gneiss. The mercury depos-
Alluvium 

Augen gneiss 

Mica schist

EXPLANATION

Gabbro ^S Contact

Hydrothermally ,' Fault, known and 

altered zone y inferred

x Mercury Thrust fault

FIGURE 14. The Camlica mercury area.
FIGURE 15. Geologic map of the Kahvedere mercu
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 35

its occur in the metamorphic rocks along an easterly trending fault 

zone in the vicinity of hot springs.

SALIHLI DEPOSITS (11)

Three small mercury deposits have been found on the hillside 

south of Salihli, and although two of these have yielded a few flasks 

of mercury, the outlook for further production is not promising.

The Kursunludere deposit, 5 km south-southwest of Salihli, was 

mined on a small scale in 1969 and 1970, producing less than 20 

flasks of mercury. Cinnabar occurs in small quartz veins in fractures 

in mica schist along a fault zone over a distance of a little more than 

100 m. Gangue minerals include pyrite, marcasite, stibnite, arsenopyrite, and pyrrhotite.

The Camur Hamam deposit, 4 km south of Salihli, yielded a few 

flasks of mercury in 1969. The ore occurrence and mineralogy here 

is identical to that of the Kursunludere deposit.

At Kokar Dere, 6 km southeast of Salihli, cinnabar occurs with 

pyrite in small quartz veinlets in fractures in schist, but there has 

been no production.

As the Salihli area is one of fairly dense population and easy access, it seems unlikely that any significant mercury deposit that 

crops out remains undiscovered.

ALASEHIR AREA

The Ala§ehir area, which contains one mine with a modest production and a few prospects, is in the southeastern part of the Manisa province about 120 km due east of Izmir. The city of Alagehir is 

south of the main Izmir-Ankara highway, from which it is readily 

accessible by 45 km of excellent road. The only productive mine is 3 

km south of the city and 2 km east of Kozluca village.

The mineralized area is on the northern slope of the sharply dissected Ala§ehir Mountains, which here consist mostly of muscovitebiotite-garnet schists of Paleozoic age overlain by limestone of 

Mesozoic age (see fig. 16). Lenses of silicified and carbonatized rock 

enclosing remnants of serpentine and grains of chromite crop out in 

the mine area. This rock is believed to be altered serpentine, much 

like the silica-carbonate rock associated with many of the mercury 

deposits of the California Coast Ranges. Another similarity to the 

California area is the occurrence nearby of glaucophane schists.

Hot springs and mineral springs occur in the Ala§ehir Valley, but 

none of these appears to have deposited any mercury minerals.

ALASEHIR MINE (12)

The Ala§ehir mine, sometimes referred to as the Orse mine from 

the first names of its owners Orhan Qutay and Sefer Aytekin, is on a
36 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

EXPLANATION

Metamorphosed 

limestone

Crystalline 

schist

CO

Contact Probable 

fault

Mercury 

occurrence

Sbx

Antimony 

occurrence

FIGURE 16. Geologic map of the area south of Ala§ehir showing the location of 

mercury and antimony deposits and outline of the Alas.ehir mine area.

ridge about 3 km south of the city of Alasehir and- about 500 m 

above it. It is reached by an unimproved very steep jeep road that 

follows a ridge between two sharply incised valleys.

The mineralized ridge is underlain chiefly by schist (see fig. 17). 

Much of the ore, however, occurs in lenses of siliceous rock, which is 

mostly silica-carbonate rock derived from serpentine, but some could 

be silicified limestone. The siliceous rock has an arcuate outcrop pattern suggesting a synclinal fold, and the few measurements of the 

foliation of the schist support this inference.

Cinnabar, the only ore mineral, occurs as veinlets, fracture 

fillings, and thin lenses to 20 cm long in schists; it is disseminated in 

y2-m-wide gouge zones with sugary quartz; and it forms scattered 

crystals and fracture coatings in silica-carbonate rock. Pyrite is 

common, and marcasite less so. Stibnite and realgar are found in a
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 37

EXPLANATION

Silica-carbonate rock

Schist

Mercury mine

X Mercury occurrence

B Shaft

Adit

\ Opencut 

[ | Building

Fault

Contact

Strike and dip of 

foliation

FIGURE 17. Geologic map of Ala§ehir mine area.

small deposit nearby but have not been identified in the mercury 

ores.

Mining has been done in irregular pits to 10 m wide and, to a 

much lesser extent, by stoping from an adit that is about 80 m long. 

Both the small ore lenses and the larger gouge zones strike N. 50°- 

60° E. and dip moderately to the southeast. The mined ore was hand 

sorted to a grade between 0.4 and 4.0 percent and processed in three 

two-pipe inclined retorts made of iron pipe 50 cm in diameter and 

about 3 m long (figs. 18, 19). The mine was discovered in 1962 and
38 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

has been producing since 1964 at a rate of about 25 flasks a month, 

working about 300 days a year. Its total recorded production 

through 1974 is 2,146 flasks of mercury, but apparently several

FIGURE 18. View of Ala§ehir mine camp and retort area, 1966. Burnt ore dump in 

foreground; discarded corroded retort pipes in pile beneath tree to right of center.

FIGURE 19. Bank of retorts in use at the Aiasehir mine in 1966.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 39

hundred additional flasks of production were not recorded.

At least two other occurrences of mercury ore have been found: 

one about 1 km to the northwest and another 1 km northeast of the 

main mine. Southeast of the mine there is much silicified and ironstained rock, but apparently it does not contain appreciable quantities of mercury.

MURAT DAGI AREA

The Murat Dagi area, which has come into prominence as a 

mercury-producing area only since 1965, occupies nearly 250 km2 of 

northern U§ak province, with its center about 35 km northeast of 

U§ak and 15 km northwest of Banaz (fig. 20). The area contains at 

least 23 occurrences of mercury ore, of which 7 support producing 

mines. Also within the area are several iron mines, some very close 

to the deposits of mercury. A few kilometers north of the area are

FIGURE 20. The Murat Dagi area northwest of Banaz showing areas covered by 

geologic maps of mercury occurrences (figs. 22, 24, 27).
40 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

several producing antimony mines, but there is virtually no overlap 

in the mercury and antimony mineralization. Most of the terrane is 

mountainous and covered by pine forest; some of the mines are in 

more open foothills.

The oldest rocks of the area are quartzite, phyllite, schist, dolomitic limestone, and marble of Jurassic age, which are strongly folded. 

These rocks are intruded by great masses of Cretaceous serpentine 

that occupy one-third of the area. Some of the serpentine is altered 

to silica-carbonate rock, in other areas a common host rock for cinnabar ore but here only locally mineralized. Granodiorite of 

Paleocene age (E. Bingol, oral commun., 1975) intrudes the 

metamorphic rocks in the northeast part of the area. The preTertiary rocks are overlain by a broadly folded early Tertiary sequence that begins with serpentine-rich conglomerate lying on serpentine, and continues upward through normal conglomerate, 

sandstone, and siltstone. Overlying them is a late Tertiary continental sequence of silicic flows and tuff, shale, sandstone, conglomerate, 

and limestone. Rhyolite, dacite, and trachyte, together with their 

pyroclastic equivalents, occur in the western part of the area; locally 

they are converted to opalite, which contains some of the mercury 

ore bodies. At least two sets of faults cut the rocks; the older set 

trends eastward and is cut by a prominent set trending northeast or 

north-northeast.

Most of the mercury deposits are in silicified rocks: silicified serpentine, conglomerate, rhyolitic or dacitic tuffs (opalite), and silicified limestone. Mineralization closely follows silicification and 

minor fracturing; openings along major faults are mostly filled with 

silica and do not contain mercury minerals.

Some of the deposits were mined many years ago, but no data 

regarding this period of mining are available. The first modern production came from the Baltali mine, and the other deposits were 

brought into production during the period of high mercury prices in 

the mid-1960's. In 1972 a 150-tpd rotary furnace was installed by 

the Turkish Mercury Corp. near the town of Banaz (fig. 21), and late 

in the year it began production on ore hauled from the Baltali 

Maden Sivrisi Tepe, Kestanelik Tepe, and Intepe mines. In 1975 

production ceased and the assets of the company were taken over by 

Etibank. The total production of the area is believed to be more than 

2,000 flasks.

BALTALI GROUP (13)

The Baltali group is made up of the scattered Maden Sivrisi Tepe, 

Cakiraz Tepe, and smaller Satilmi§ Tepe mines about 2 km west and 

south of the village of Baltali (see fig. 22). The village is readily 

accessible from Banaz on the U§ak-Afyon highway by 30 km of
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 41

FIGURE 21. The 150-tpd rotary furnace plant installed near Banaz by the Turkish 

Mercury Corporation in 1972. Photograph taken in 1973 from flat top of burnt ore 

dump in foreground.

gravel road, and short branch roads lead to the different deposits.

The Maden Sivrisi Tepe mine is in an area of nearly flat-lying 

siliceous flows and tuffs locally silicified by impregnation of quartz, 

chalcedony, and opal to form a rock referred to as opalite. Cinnabar 

forms ore in this rock where it fills irregular open spaces, fractures, 

and cracks; minor cinnabar also occurs in unsilicified tuff. A little 

iron stain and jarosite accompany the ore, but iron sulfides have not 

been seen in the near-surface ore. In the layered volcanic rocks, 

three beds are most intensely silicified, and margins of vertical fractures in soft tuff beds between them are silicified. The cinnabar is 

concentrated in three overlapping ore bodies in the three siliceous 

zones. The blankets of good ore are 1 to 3 m thick and at least 60 m 

in horizontal extent (fig. 23). The margins above and below are 

rather abrupt, and the less altered tuff between layers contains little 

cinnabar.

The mine is an old one with more than a thousand meters of underground workings from which ore yielding perhaps as much as 

1,000 flasks was mined. In 1970 the Turkish Mercury Corp. was organized, and in a joint venture with Etibank began exploration and 

development of the deposit. In 1972, after a 150-tpd rotary furnace 

plant had been completed at Banaz, the deposit was mined in an 

opencut by power shovel, and the ore was hauled the 30 km to the 

new furnace. The grade of the ore is quite low, but reserves are es-
42 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

v v v _ __

V V V '' V V V V

7 Y v v v-v v v yXvv/t v vvvv V'

v v Y.~"' v v v/ v\ v v v v. v v

X^ v v v vy v \y v v v v v v v v/v v v 

'v v "v^y vvj^vvvv v v*

v v vy*" Kestanelik T.

vv vvvvvvvvvvyvvvv.t .YVV^ T 

 Vv vvvvvvVV vvv/vvv vf^Tv v v\ 

v vvvvvvvvvvivvv v^v v v v v 

v v v vvvvv vv^/vvvv vv v vv 

v v v v V*W^ vvvj'v vvvvvvv vvvv

'lx^^'Cl\L-->.l/ V V V ^Tv ^^ VVVVV VVVVVVVV

/ v v

V V

v v v v !v v _v_>!

VVVv VVVVVVVV

^ l '.':v v v^

V V/,')

v ^-''-.^O1- *r-^>T> '-<>^'«'>^/-\

''I^^l \ s£ ^\ ^ ^ ^ -I / -' O-S

jp-r;

FIGURE 22. Part of the Murat Dagi area showing the geologic setting of the Maden
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 43

\

25

/

/

 I.KI.

/ V V V 

V V V V

EXPLANATION

Talu*

Alluvium

Opallta, locally with 

cinnabar

Blotlta andat ite

Siliceous tuff, locally 

kaolinlied

Tertiary conglomerate, tanditone, 

 fltttona, and tuff

Conglomerate 

Serpentine

Contact, known and 

Infarrad

Fault, known and 

Inferred

Vlllaga

Road

^A Mercury depotlt 

> Adit

Sivrisi Tepe, Cakiraz Tepe, Satilmi§ Tepe, and Kestanelik Tepe mercury mines.
44 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

FIGURE 23. Opencut developed in gently dipping opalite at the Baltali Maden

Sivrisi Tepe mine.

timated to be large. As the ore from the Maden Sivrisi Tepe mine 

was mixed with ores from other deposits, the total production of the 

mine is not known.

The Cakiraz Tepe deposit, which is part of the Baltali group of 

mines, is about 1 km north of the Maden Sivrisi Tepe deposit (fig. 

22). It is in an area of deep soil and forest cover, but the dump reveals the presence of both silicified and argillized tuff and breccia. 

Cinnabar occurs as thin coatings and veinlets accompanied by considerable pyrite. Weathered ore contains much jarosite. Long ago an 

adit was driven in an area beneath small surface cuts, and since the 

mine's revival in 1968, two additional long adits have been driven. 

The ore is low grade, probably less than 0.2 percent, and is hauled 

for processing to the furnace plant near Banaz.

KESTANELIK TEPE MINE (14)

The Kestanelik Tepe mine is a minor deposit on a low hill about 3 

km south of Baltali in the southwest corner of the Murat Dagi area 

(fig. 22). Here cinnabar forms ore containing about 0.5 percent mercury where it is concentrated with silica in openings in silicified and 

brecciated quartz-pebble conglomerate of late Tertiary age. Some 

lower grade ore occurs beneath the conglomerate where cinnabar is 

disseminated in sandstone. The deposit was mined on a small scale 

some years ago, but there is no record of early production. In 1972
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 45

the Turkish Mercury Corp. began mining in an open pit and hauling 

the ore to its 150-tpd furnace plant in Banaz.

INTEPE MINE (15)

The Intepe mine is in the southeastern part of the Murat Dagi 

area and accessible by road from the village of Kuciikoturak, about 

10 km northwest of Banaz (fig. 24). The ore consists of disseminated 

cinnabar in a moderately silicified conglomerate with some

EXPLANATION

Fault, known and 

inferred

? Conglomerate, sandstone, 

jg limestone, marl, shale, 

and tuff

% Rhyolite tuff

:' Conglomerate, sandstone, 

and siltstone

:$$$$$ Serpentine ytEcc 

&&V&;v conglomerate \ P <

FIGURE 24. Geologic map of an area including the Intepe, Cicekli Kayasi Tepe, and 

Agirsak Kayasi Tepe mines.
46 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

sandstone. Both pyrite and marcasite have been identified in some of 

the ore. Serpentine lying below the conglomerate is unmineralized. 

Mining has been done mostly on the surface, but there are a few 

hundred meters of tunnels and a shaft. In the period 1968-71, a 

private company operated the mine and, by retorting sorted ore containing 0.5 percent mercury, obtained about 350 flasks of mercury. 

In 1972 the deposit was leased to the Turkish Mercury Corp., but in 

the following year, when no major ore body had been found, the 

lease was not renewed.

CICEKLI KAYASI TEPE MINE (16)

This deposit takes its name from its occurrence in a very steep and 

sharp white peak, Qigekli Kayasi Tepe, that looms above an area of 

dense pine forest (fig. 25). It is 14 km north-northwest of Banaz, 

from which it is reached by a 27-km-long road (fig. 24).

Very fine grained cinnabar occurs as clouds of disseminated particles in chalcedony, and very locally as richer quartz-cinnabar veinlets in partly brecciated but very hard silicified rock that may be 

either totally replaced limestone or a hot-spring sinter deposit. Ore 

was restricted to two or three vertical pipes 5 to 7 m in diameter 

which have been mined to a depth of 30 m (fig. 26). The pipe walls 

are locally smooth and fluted and perhaps are the vents for hot 

springs that deposited the sinter. Unfortunately, at the time of our 

visit, all of the filling of the pipes in this geologically interesting 

deposit had been mined out. It appeared that attempts made to mine 

the red rubble on the hillside around the siliceous knot had been 

unsuccessful.

The deposit here was discovered in 1962 and has been mined by a 

private company from 1965 to 1971. Most of the mining has been 

done in a narrow pit served by an underlying haulage adit, but some 

ore has been mined underground through several other workings 

totaling only a few hundred meters in length. The ore is reported to 

have been hand sorted to a grade of 0.5 percent or more mercury and 

to have been hauled by truck to retorts at U§ak, some 72 km away. 

The total production is rumored to be about 1,000 flasks of mercury, 

but to yield this amount, the ore must have been very much richer 

than any we have seen.

AGIRSAK KAYASI TEPE (17)

A small deposit on the peak of the Agirsak Kayasi Tepe is about 

800 m south of the Qigekli Kayasi Tepe mine and can be reached 

from Banaz over the same roadway (see fig. 24). The ore deposit is 

somewhat similar to the Qigekli Kayasi Tepe deposit, the cinnabar 

occurring in a brecciated hard silicified rock. The siliceous breccia
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 47

far

FIGURE 25. Looming above the forest is the spire of siliceous sinter(?) that contains 

the Cigekli Kayasi Tepe ore deposit.

directly overlies unaltered limestone and appears to be a siliceous 

sinter, but although some cinnabar was concentrated in steep fractures and rubble zones, we were unable to identify any ancient 

spring vents like those at Qigekli Tepe.

The deposit was discovered in the mid-1960's and was mined in an 

open pit by a private company. Hand-sorted ore was hauled 22 km to 

retorts at a site north of the village of Banaz Koy, but the total 

production is small, perhaps around 50 flasks. Little cinnabar remains, and the deposit appears to have been mined out.

KARACAHISAR MINE (18)

The Karacahisar mine is near the middle of the Murat Dagi area, 

about 25 km by road from Banaz. The main deposit is near a valley,
48 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

but mercury mineralization extends discontinuously to the northwest almost a kilometer up the slope of Tozlakgedik Tepe, where

FIGURE 26. Mined-out ore pipe in siliceous rock (sinter?) at Cicekli Kayasi Tepe 

mine. Person standing on flat surface to left of pipe provides scale.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 49

there formerly was a small mercury mine by this name (see fig. 27). 

The Tozlakgedik Tepe deposit was largely in silicified and brecEXPLANATION

Alluvlum

Conglomerate, sandstone, 

limestone, marl, shale, 

and tuff

Ahdeslte, daolte, and 

trachyte andeslte

Rhyollte tuff

Silica-carbonate rock

Conglomerate, sandstone, 

and siltstone

Serpentine

Marble, phylllte, and schist }\uO 

OC ui 

OO

Marble

PhyMlllt* and crystalline 

schist

 Contact

 -» Fault, known and Inferred

32 X Foliation

K Mercury mine

X Mercury occurrence

W Antimony mine

Jill Village

FIGURE 27. Geologic map of the Karacahisar mine area.
50 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

dated rhyolite tuff. From there down to the main deposit of the 

Karacahisar mine, cinnabar occurs in various places in fissures and 

disseminated in intensely silicified serpentine, regarded as a kind of 

silica-carbonate rock. Pyrite and marcasite are abundant in the ore 

in the silica-carbonate rock but unknown in the ore in rhyolite. The 

mineralization of the lowest deposit is partly controlled by a fault 

that trends N. 30° E., following the valley, and it is likely that some 

of the other poorly exposed deposits lie along similar faults. Other 

smaller faults trending northwest appear to be unmineralized.

The Karacahisar deposit was first worked by a private company in 

the mid-1960's by opencut mining. Ore was hand sorted to achieve a 

good grade and treated in retorts at the mine. The total production 

is believed to be about a hundred flasks. Production from the other 

deposits nearby is unknown but believed to be small.

EVRENTDEDE DEPOSITS (19)

The Evrentdede mercury area contains two main deposits, both in 

silicified serpentine (figs. 28, 29). At the Kumgam deposit, 5 km 

north of Banaz, the mineralization consists of an east trending zone 

containing narrow but rich veinlets of cinnabar traversing the silicified serpentine (fig. 28). The ore was intially mined from the surface; in 1970 underground mining was started. The ore is treated in 

retorts near the mine.

The other deposit, named Hasan Dami, is several kilometers to 

the west and can be reached from Banaz over 20 km of jeep road. 

Cinnabar veinlets striking N. 30° W. and other concentrations of 

scattered crystals occur in silicified serpentine. Much of the ore is in 

a deeply weathered ocherous cellular rock formed by leaching out 

the carbonates from a silica-carbonate rock. The mine is an old one 

with surface pits, an adit, and at least two shafts, one of which is 

said to reach a depth of 80 m. After a long period of inactivity, mining was resumed in 1968 and continued for at least 6 years. Handsorted ore was treated in six retorts; each contained four iron pipes 

and had water-cooled condensing pipes (fig. 30). Lignite was used for 

fuel. Production was said to amount to 200-300 flasks per year, but 

the recorded production from 1968-73 is only 772 flasks.

IVRINDI AREA

IVRINDI OCCURRENCES (20)

In Balikesir province, a few occurrences of cinnabar have been 

found about 6 km south of Ivrindi and 30 km southwest of the city of 

Balikesir (Marico, 1970). Except perhaps for the recently discovered 

Sava§tepe deposit described below, they are of no apparent economic 

interest.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 51

EXPLANATION

Alluvium 0^-7 Contact

^- Fault

Talus

Silicified rock, 

locally-contains cinnabar

Serpentine

Tertiary conglomerate, sandstone, clay, marl, and 

local tuff beds

Probable fault

Strike and die

Road

Mercury occurrence Village

FIGURE 28. Geologic map of the area about the Evrentdede mercury deposits.

The Ivrindi area is underlain by Paleozoic (Permian?) limestone 

and Tertiary andesite, rhyolite, and pyroclastic equivalents. Cinnabar occurs in three places along north-trending fractures in silicified limestone, but its apparent extent in each place is only a few 

meters in length and 20 cm in width. Elsewhere in the area are 

promising antimony deposits consisting of disseminations and veins 

of stibnite in highly argillized andesite. The antimony and mercury 

have not been found together.

In 1974 the Sava§tepe mercury deposit was discovered about 30 

km southwest of Balikesir. In this area cinnabar occurs in silicacarbonate rock bordering a contact between serpentine and
52 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

FIGURE 29. Evrentdede mine portal in weathered silica-carbonate rock.

sandstone. The mineralized zone is several meters wide and extends 

along a strike at least 25 m to where the contact is covered by andesite. As other silica-carbonate zones occur over an area of 1 to 2 km2 , 

this region warrants further investigation.

BIGA AREA

The Biga area, in the northern part of the Balikesir province only 

about 20 km south of the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara, is 

chiefly an area of base-metal deposits. Mercury was first discovered 

there in 1969, and by 1972, when the low price of mercury forced the 

termination of mining, perhaps 200 flasks of mercury had been recovered. The area is one of considerable relief and is heavily 

forested, making for difficult prospecting. It is also notable because 

of the prevalence of earthquakes and active hot springs.

HODUL KOY MINE (21)

The small Hodul Kby mine lies at an altitude of about 400 m in 

the mountains midway between Biga and Gbnen. It can be reached 

by driving 12 km over a road extending south from the CanakkaleBursa highway. The rocks of the area include Paleozoic phyllite, 

quartzite, and schist overlain by Mesozoic (Jurassic?) limestone and 

capped by Tertiary andesite, dacite, and related tuffs (fig. 31).

Cinnabar and some native mercury occur in veinlets with quartz 

and pyrite along fractures and faults in a Paleozoic graphitic schist
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 53

FIGURE 30. One of six 4-pipe retorts being used in 1973 to treat ore from the

Evrentdede mine.

and in the Mesozoic limestone close to the younger volcanic rocks. 

Some ore was taken from an open pit, and some came from a few 

hundred meters of underground workings. By 1972, after production 

ceased with the lowering of the price of mercury, 65 flasks had been 

produced through retorting of hand-sorted ore. Although the deposit 

appears to be small, it is a new discovery in an area not previously 

known to contain mercury ore. Additional search for other deposits 

in this region seems warranted.

IZMIT AREA

In the Izmit area 45 km east of Istanbul, there are a few small 

mercury deposits, only one of which has had a little production. The 

rocks here are limestone, arkosic sandstone, and conglomerate of 

Paleozoic age that are poorly exposed through a cover of soil in an 

oak forest.

MUDARLI MINE (22)

The Mudarli mine, a few hundred meters northeast of the village 

of the same name, is accessible from the Istanbul-Ankara highway 

via 44 km of jeep road. Cinnabar occurs here in veinlets with quartz 

and a little pyrite in limestone and dark arkosic sandstone, and to a 

lesser degree as grains and patches disseminated through these 

rocks. Hbll (1966) believed the mercury ore to be syngenetic, but it
54 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

400 METERS

Geology by Vural Alkan 

A'

Section A-A'

EXPLANATION

Alluvium

500m

- 300m

100m

Graphitic schist

Andesite and dacite 

(Tertiary)

Gray limestone 

(Jurassic?) Fault

FIGURE 31. Geologic map and section of Hodul Koy mine area.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 55

clearly is in veins not confined to one stratigraphic horizon and seems 

more likely to be hydrothermal in origin. Erosion of the primary 

deposits and deposition in the nearby valley has given rise to placer 

concentrations, which were mined on a small scale sometime prior to 

World War I (MTA, 1970). The latest mining here was in 1967, and 

the total production is believed to be less than 100 flasks of mercury. 

Other occurrences in the area, though still poorly exposed, appear to 

have no economic value.

SOGUT AREA

SOGUT OCCURRENCES (23)

Two economically unimportant but geologically interesting occurrences of cinnabar have been found east of Sogiit, in Bilecik province, 33 km southeast of Bilecik. One occurrence is in the Korudanlik district 6 km east of Sogiit, where in 1971 a little cinnabar was 

found in cracks in silicified parts of a limestone bed. In the same 

area gold occurs with clay in apparent solution pockets in the limestone, in one place in amounts assaying 900 g/ton. The cinnabar and 

gold do not occur together, and no relation between them is suspected. The second occurrence is a discovery, also in 1971, of cinnabar in some exploratory trenches at the Dudas. mine, 4 km north 

of the Korudanlik area. Here small amounts of stibnite and scheelite have been mined from quartz veins cutting schist and sandstone. 

The presence of cinnabar in this deposit was first reported by Hbll 

(1966) but, until this new discovery, had not been seen by the mine 

operators.

INEBOLU AREA

The Inebolu area bordering the south shore of the Black Sea contains the £>eyh§aban mercury mine, which has had intermittent production for 60 years. The area is in the northern part of the Kastamonu province, township of Inebolu, and is by airline only about 

25 km southeast of the seacoast port of Inebolu. However, the mine 

area is high in the Pontid Mountains and is most easily reached 

from Kastamonu via Devrekani and §eyh§aban.

This part of the Pontid Mountains is formed of upper Paleozoic 

and Mesozoic sedimentary and volcanic rocks that have been folded 

and faulted during the Alpine orogeny. It contains many copper deposits, including the nearby Kiire deposit (Bailey and others, 1967), 

but the §eyh§aban deposit is the only known occurrence of mercury 

minerals. Such an extensive deposit without some satellitic deposits 

along the same tectonic zone is unusual; additional search along this 

rugged belt might discover other deposits.
56 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

§EYH§ABAN MINE (24)

The §eyh§aban mine is reached from the village of the same name 

by traveling 2 km south toward Devrekani and here turning off to 

follow a branch road 7 km through Ahatlar to Terce, the location of 

the mine (fig. 32). Near the mine the road contours along the steep 

north slope of a valley 500 m or more deep, and at the mine there 

are pits and adits spread from the base of the valley up the slope for 

several hundred meters (fig. 33). An average altitude is about 750 

m, and winter snows at this level make year-around production 

difficult.

The rocks of the area (fig. 32) are not well exposed and the geology 

is not entirely understood. The area is underlain by irregular lenses 

of sandstone, shale, phyllite, conglomerate, and limestone which 

mainly strike east and dip south at intermediate angles. These rocks 

are cut by east-trending faults, at least some of which are low-angle 

thrust faults that dip northward. Apparently intruded along one of 

the fault zones are masses of serpentine, prominently exposed along 

the road by Ahatlar. Locally the serpentine has been altered to 

silica-carbonate rock, but no mercury has been found in this rock.

The only ore mineral in the §eyh§aban deposit is cinnabar, which 

occurs with quartz in fractures in indurated shale and silicified and 

dolomitized limestone. Locally, in openings in the rock, the cinnabar 

occurs as well-formed euhedral crystals 1 to 2 mm in size. Stibnite is 

more abundant than cinnabar in the lowest ores near the canyon 

floor, and realgar occurs in some of the ore in higher exposures. The 

cinnabar is most abundant beneath the faults dipping at low angles 

to the north, but no large or rich ore bodies have been found. As 

mined, the grade does not exceed 0.1 percent, but the ore is readily 

sorted by hand to achieve a better grade.

The deposit was first mined by a French company beginning in 

1912, but neither the duration of their work nor the amount of production is well known. In 1956, after a long period of inactivity, the 

mine was bought by the Goksu Mining Co., which began producing 

in 1958 at a rate of a few hundred flasks a year. Most of their production came through the use of three IVfe-ton upright furnaces constructed with a wood-burning firebox at the base, a central stovepipelike chimney which was loaded with charcoal, and a complex 

system of condensing troughs spread on the hillside above the furnace (fig. 34). Late in 1960 a modern 30-foot oil-burning rotary furnace was installed, but owing to an inadequate condensing system, 

it was abandoned after only 7 hours' use. In 1971 a 50-tpd rotary 

furnace was installed, but production from it has been small. It is 

believed that the total production from the several deposits that 

make up the §eyh§aban mine has been about 1,500 flasks.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 57

D

Geology by I Sezer.

EXPLANATION

Serpentine s- Contact ^-, Mercury occurrence / ^^

^ Chromite 1 ""°i>1 """ occurrence 

Schist with sandstone intercalations

Fault showing ** Strike and

dip of beds

FIGURE 32. Geologic map of the Seyhgaban mine area. 

KONYA AREA

The ore deposits of the Konya area have been the source of a third 

of all the mercury produced in Turkey, and they are of special interest because they probably were first worked for cinnabar to be used 

as "paint" more than 8,000 years ago. This area, 40 km northnorthwest of the city of Konya (fig. 1), is readily accessible from 

either the east or north by roads leading from the Konya-Afyon 

highway.

The area is dry and mountainous, with massive limestone ridges 

rising from the plain at 1,000 m to reach altitudes of about 1,900 m 

along a centrally located divide. The rocks of the area, believed to be 

Paleozoic in age, are chiefly limestone, sandstone, phyllite, and 

metaporphyry, all of which have been subjected to greenschist-facies 

metamorphism. The rocks trend west-northwest and dip 15°-45° N. 

Detailed description of the geology, ore deposits, and mining history 

can be found in reports by Murdock (1958) and Barnes, Nackowski, 

and Bailey (1972).

The Konya area contains two groups of mines: the more productive Sizma mines lying south of the divide and the Ladik deposits
58 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

FIGURE 33. Seyhsaban mine viewed looking north. Low-level workings in lower 

right contained chiefly stibnite ore. Shaft furnaces above burnt ore dump cut by 

prominent gully near top of picture.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 59

FIGURE 34. Elaborate system of mercury-condensing troughs on hillside above shaft 

furnace in use at Seyhsaban mine in 1966.

north of the divide about 5 km north of the Sizma group (see fig. 35). 

In 1974 both groups of deposits were being worked by Etibank, and 

their ores were being treated in a modern plant containing two 175- 

tpd rotary furnaces. Production in 1974 was 5,680 flasks of mercury, 

bringing total production to about 45,000 flasks, the largest of any 

district in Turkey. In 1975 production was smaller because one of 

the large furnaces was moved to the Halikoy mine, where reserves 

were believed to be more extensive.

SIZMA MINES (25)

The Sizma mines consist of a cluster of three main mines the 

Biiyuk, Qalica, and Medrese and numerous small workings and 

pits lying at an altitude of 1,650 to 1,850 m on the south slope of the 

divide. They are now perhaps most accessible by the ore haulage 

road extending from the north side but formerly were best reached 

from the village of Sizma, a few kilometers south of the mines. The 

total production of these mines has not been satisfactorily recorded 

but is estimated to be nearly 40,000 flasks, most of which came from 

the Biiyiik mine.

The rocks of the area consist of thick units of limestone interbedded with phyllite (fig. 35). They appear to make up a fairly orderly 

sequence dipping northward at moderate angles, but local isoclinal
Alluvium 

Limestone 

Phyllite 

Meta-porphry

X Strike and dip 

bedding

X Strike and dip 

49 foliation

O 90O WOOm

Contour interval, 4O me

FIGURE 35. Area northwest of Konya showing the geologic setting 
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 61

folds suggest that the structure may be more complicated. Faults 

trending west to northwest offset the sedimentary contacts but do 

not seem to have a significant relation to the ore deposits.

Cinnabar is the most important mercury mineral, but metacinnabar and native mercury occur in small amounts. The former presence of mercury-bearing tetrahedrite reported by van der Kaaden 

(1966) is suggested by the occurrence of oxidized copper minerals, 

but in the ore they are very rare. Stibnite accompanies cinnabar in 

milky quartz in the largest deposit. Quartz occurs with cinnabar in 

fractures and replaces limestone in the ore bodies. Hydrothermal 

calcite occurs in veins with cinnabar only in broken limestone and 

may represent dissolved and reprecipitated limestone. Coarsely 

crystalline purple fluorite accompanies cinnabar, quartz, and calcite 

in veins in limestone, where it is a fairly common gangue mineral. 

Barite was reported by Holl (1966).

The Biiyuk mine, the oldest and largest mine in the Konya area, 

is centrally located among the Sizma deposits. Ore was mined here 

in ancient times in a near-surface cavernous stope that was obliterated in the development of recent opencuts (fig. 36). Ore at greater 

depth was mined through lower levels, some 43 m apart, and connected by a long incline having a 20° slope. Altogether, there are

FIGURE 36. Large opencut developed at the Buyuk mine in the early 1970's. This 

deposit was the site of the cinnabar mining in prehistoric times, perhaps as early 

as 6,000 B.C. Rocky exposures in foreground and distant mountain are limestone; 

subdued topography in central area developed on phyllite.
62 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

about 1,300 m of workings on the main levels and perhaps as much 

more in old shallow adits no longer accessible. Ore occurs where 

cinnabar is in patches and ramifying veinlets, forming minable 

masses to 2 m thick, 1 to 3 m wide, and 3 to 25 m long. The ore 

shoots are localized in limestone close beneath phyllite in minor anticlinal flexures in a westward-plunging anticlinal fold (see fig. 37). 

As mined in the early 1970's, the average grade was low, perhaps no 

more than 0.1 percent, but the ore can be readily hand sorted to a 

grade better than 0.5 percent, as was formerly done for shaft furnace 

and retort operation (fig. 38).

The Qaliga mine, 400 m northeast of the Biiyiik mine, contains ore 

localized in limestone beneath the same phyllite-limestone contact 

that controlled the position of the ore in the Biiyiik deposit. Here, 

however, the contact is nearly straight, generally dipping between 

30° and 60° northwest. The small size of the Qalicja ore bodies 

perhaps results from the absence of favorable flexures such as those 

in the Biiyiik deposit.

At the Medrese mine, 900 m southwest of the Biiyiik mine, four 

adits explore limestone-phyllite contacts, one of which is the same as 

that which localized the ore of the Biiyiik mine. The ore is much like 

the Biiyiik ore in occurrence and mineralogy except that here fluorite is conspicuous. We have no data on the grade or quantity of ore 

stoped from the shoots on different contacts in the mine.

The modern discovery of mercury ore in the Sizma area was made 

in 1904, as well documented by Monachi (1908a, b) and Sharpless 

(1908). They tell how a goatherd driving his goats into a limestone 

cave by throwing rocks at them noticed that one rock was red and 

heavier than the others and so kept it. It eventually came into the 

hands of a woolbuyer in Istanbul who had been trained in the Royal 

School of Mines, and he recognized it as rich cinnabar ore. He subsequently arranged to go with the goatherd to examine the cave, 

where he found the walls laced with veinlets of cinnabar, for in reality the cave was an ancient mine excavation. After a little mining, 

he made a still more astonishing discovery: when breaking through 

the floor of the cave, he found a chamber containing 50 human 

skeletons encrusted with lime and accompanied by stone hammers, 

pottery lamps, and a few chipped artifacts. More examination 

showed the walls were grooved where cinnabar veinlets had been 

gouged out; obviously this chamber was once a mine working in 

which the ill-fated miners had been traped by an ancient cave-in. 

Sharpless thought this early mining was done by Phrygians about 

1,000 B.C., but the absence of metal tools suggests that the miners 

belonged to an even earlier culture.
22.000N -

21.900N -

21,SOON -

21.700N -

21,600N -

21.500N -

50 100 METERS 

i i

/// Limestone 

// 1626

Conta

Points 

Conta

11 11 I ( Unde

inte

FIGURE 37. Structure contours drawn on the phyllite-limestone contact o
64 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

FIGURE 38. Shaft furnaces being used at the Biiyiik mine in 1966; miners houses 

in background. In 1972 ore was being hauled by Etibank to modern 175-tpd 

rotary furnace plant, and these structures were all destroyed.

Indirect evidence indicates the Sizma deposit was mined for cinnabar to be used as "paint" at a much earlier date. Some 65 km 

southeast of the mine, cinnabar-painted skulls were found by Mellaart (1965, p. 91; 1967) during the excavation of an early Neolithic 

village, Catal Huyiik. The skulls were dated by radiocarbon methods 

at 6,280 years B.C., and, although there is no proof the cinnabar 

came from the Sizma mines, these are the nearest and most likely 

sources.

As documented in the following section describing the nearby 

Ladik mine, mercury mining was probably carried on in this area by 

Romans and Greeks.

Shortly after the rediscovery of the Biiyiik mine by the goatherd 

and woolbuyer, a British company obtained a mining concession, 

and incomplete records indicate that between 1906 and 1911, this 

company produced nearly 10,000 flasks by processing hand-sorted 

ore containing 1V6 to 2 percent mercury through two shaft-type furnaces (Eng. and Mining Jour., 1908). From 1912-54 apparently only 

a little sporadic mining was done by local villagers (Ryan, 1957; 

Murdock, 1958). Between 1954 and 1964, various Turkish companies worked the Sizma deposits, producing 10,345 flasks of mercury, according to the U.S. Bureau of Mines (1964).

In 1964 Etibank acquired leases to all the major mines of the
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 65

Konya area and began an aggressive exploration, development, and 

mining program. In 1969 they completed the installation of a modern 175-tpd rotary furnace plant (fig. 39). In 1970 a similar furnace 

was added; in 1975 it was moved to the Halikoy mine, also operated 

by Etibank. 

Annual production since 1969 is as follows:

Year Flasks

1969 ______________ 1,374

1970 ______________________ 2,593

1971 ______________ 3,551

1972 ______________ 2,839

1973 ____________ 3,255

1974 _____________-i_________ 5,680

1975 ______________ 2,985

1976 (through September)___ 2,950

Extensive geologic and exploratory work was done in the area by 

MTA in 1973-74. At the end of their study, visible and probable ore 

was reported to be 491,000 tons with a grade of 0.15 to 0.35 percent 

mercury.

LADIK MINES (26)

The Ladik area, on the north slope of the main ridge but near the 

valley, is about 3 km south of Ladik, a small village near the 

Konya-Afyon highway. The area contains one major mine the 

Qirakman mine, with a production of several thousand flasks of 

mercury two small mines, and some other prospects.

The Qirakman mine ore bodies occur in and near a compound vertical fault zone trending nearly east and separating phyllite on the 

north from marble on the south (see figs. 40, 41). Cinnabar, accompanied by rare metacinnabar and native mercury, occurs as clots of 

grains and veinlets in broken silicified and dolomitized marble. Purple fluorite is fairly common and seems to be nearly contemporaneous with the cinnabar. A few specimens of realgar and orpiment 

have been found. The ore patches are generally less than 2 m wide 

and are quite discontinuous. Much of the ore is in marble along the 

fault, but good ore has also been found in the marble along fractures 

as far as 50 m from the fault. The ore has been mined through a 

vertical range of about 150 m, and for 350 m along the fault zone in 

surface pits and four underground levels with an aggregate length of 

nearly 2,000 m.

The Ladik area was mined for mercury in antiquity by the Romans and probably also by the Greeks. Near the Qirakman mine we 

found the bedrock hearth for a primitive retort (fig. 42), the oldest 

mercury extraction equipment yet discovered (Barnes and Bailey,
66 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

2 o g1 6

a

c ro

ca co

 ^

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CD h

fi * 0 i

CD § 

CJ ^ 

O

t~,

CO

&.-§

2 §O) 

^ en

^ «

CO g

 S.S

_g M

:2 CO

21

c -a B ,55 a §

Q, V T3

10 O 

01 |> ^

" !-H h 

CO CO

C _C ,S£

Oj O
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 67

1972; Barnes and others, 1972). A drawing of the "retort" site and a 

reconstruction (fig. 43) show how it may have looked when in use. To 

distill mercury, selected pieces of rich cinnabar ore were mixed with 

charcoal or wood and piled in the circular depression in the limestone slab, ignited, and covered with an inverted earthenware pot. 

Circulation of air was provided by a small inlet hole at the drainage 

channel at the base and an exit hole at the top connected with a long 

earthenware pipe extending up the hill. Mercury was volatilized by 

the fire and condensed on the walls of the pot or in the exhaust pipe. 

After firing, tapping of the chimney and pot caused the droplets to 

fall to the floor, where the ashes would float and the liquid metal 

could be coaxed through the drainage channel to collect in the 

bowllike depression at its end. We cannot accurately date the time of 

use of this retort, but the excavation is like other quarries nearby 

from which were taken stones now found in Ladik bearing Latin and 

Greek inscriptions.

The beginning of modern mining at the Qirakman deposit is not 

recorded. No doubt the deposit was operated on some scale during 

the 1906-11 period of major mining in the adjoining Sizma area 

(MTA, 1970, p. 11); there is some evidence that it was worked in the 

early 1950's, and in 1957-58 it yielded 177 flasks. In the early and 

middle 1960's it was being worked on a small-scale, producing mercury from sorted ore through the use of a small shaft furnace (fig. 

44), but the quantity recovered is not known. After Etibank acquired 

the concession in 1964 and installed the large rotary furnace plant 

in 1969, the mine was aggressively developed and ore was hauled 

from it to the nearby plant. In 1972-73, MTA made a geologic study 

and tested for new ore bodies along the extension of the fault zone by 

drilling.

The productive Toprakle Bogurme Tepe deposit is 3 km south of 

Ladik and 1 km west of the Qirakman mine. Here cinnabar was 

found in a silicified zone in a marble lens in phyllite along a fault 

trending N. 70° W. up a hillside. Subsequent drilling in the floor 

of a wide canyon along the projection of the fault revealed an ore 

body in limestone beneath the alluvium. In 1973-74, after stripping 

200,000 m3 of barren gravel to form an opencut about 150 m x 

50 m x 30 m deep, the ore was mined by Etibank and hauled to 

their furnace for processing. The grade ranged between 0.1 and 1.0 

percent mercury, and the total yield from the ore body was about 

500 flasks.

The Kur§unlu mine is 2Vz km east of the Qirakman mine and less 

than a kilometer east of Etibank's large mercury recovery plant. It 

was operated in the early 1960's and had a small production from 

the retorting of sorted ore that averaged about 1.0 percent mercury.
68 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

FIGURE 40. Geologic map
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 69

eology and topography by participants in 

he 4th CENTO Summer Training Course, 

n Geological Mapping Techniques, JulySeptember 1969

EXPLANATION

Conglomerate > 

Unconformity

Marble

Phyllite

Xeo Strike and dip of beds

, Strike and dip of foliation, 

/£~~ and direction and plunge of 

lineation

 ___ Contact

._ 112- Fault showing dip

/<^ Top of cut

xSjiir Dump

| p-1 Building

of the Cirakman mine area.
70 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

FIGURE 41. View of Qirakman mine area south of Ladik. Ore zone and mine openings are along contact between marble-forming ridge extending to hill in center 

and phyllite covered by forest at left.

FIGURE 42. Hearth of ancient mercury retort near Qirakman mine, believed to be 

oldest evidence of extraction of mercury from cinnabar by distillation yet discovered.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 71
72 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

FIGURE 44. Iron shaft furnace and ground-level condensing system in use at the 

Qirakman mine in 1966. After 1969 ore from here was hauled a short distance to 

the modern 175-tpd rotary furnace plant installed by Etibank south of Ladik.

The main ore occurred where cinnabar was in veinlets or patches in 

a steep fault zone about 1 m wide separating limestone from phyllite. Some cinnabar also is disseminated in small grains in zones 4 to 

8 m wide and extending for a reported 180 m. The total production is 

unknown but surely is very small.

The Muratbag deposit, which has yielded little ore, is 4 km 

northwest of the Qirakman mine and adjacent to the Ladik plain. 

The ore occurrence is much like that at Qirakman, the cinnabar 

being in limestone along a fault separating it from phyllite, although the relative position of the two rocks is here reversed. Also 

occurring here is schwatzite, which on weathering yields malachite, 

azurite, secondary cinnabar, and antimony oxides. Only a little 

exploratory work is reported to have been done on this deposit.

NIGDE AREA

The Nigde area, which includes unusual deposits containing cinnabar with stibnite, realgar, and scheelite, is in Nigde province 12 

km southeast of the city of this name. Difficulties have arisen in 

processing the mixed ores, but retorting of sorted ore from at least 

two mercury deposits has resulted in the production of several 

hundred flasks of mercury.

The deposits lie at an altitude of 1,600 m and higher in a barren
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 73

mountain region where exposures are very good. The dominant 

rocks are schist, gneiss, marble, quartzite, and amphibolite, 

metamorphosed in the almandine-amphibolite facies and generally 

regarded as Paleozoic in age. They are cut by dikes of granodiorite, 

micropegmatite, and aplite, some of which show a tectonic fabric. 

Veins of quartz, locally containing black tourmaline, occur throughout the schist, and quartz lenticles and segregations are common. 

Within less than 10 km of the ore deposits are stocklike masses of 

granite and gabbro. The metamorphic rocks are broadly folded into 

an anticlinal flexure plunging gently to the southwest, and the ore 

bodies are localized near the crest of the fold, as shown in figure 45.

It has been postulated that the arch structure may be the result of 

the intrusion of a still-concealed granite mass that has given rise to 

the dikes, veins, and possibly even the tungsten mineralization. As 

late Cenozoic rhyolite flows and tuffs overlie the metamorphic rocks 

to the north, west, and south, the antimony, arsenic, and mercury 

mineralization may be related to this young igneous activity.

GUMUSLER MINE (27)

The Gumu§ler mine, the main deposit in the Nigde area, is 

reached from Nigde by driving north 10.5 km to the village of 

Gumu§ler, then following a dirt road southeast for 6 km. Because of 

the difficulty of separating the cinnabar, stibnite, and scheelite in 

the ore, this deposit has produced only a little mercury, some antimony ore, and a few hundred tons of scheelite ore.

The unusual Hg-Sb-W mineralization at the Gumu§ler mine (fig. 

45) was the subject of a preliminary article by Wendel (1967) and a 

detailed thesis study by Dennis (1970), from whose work most of the 

following data are taken. Cinnabar, stibnite, some realgar, and 

scheelite all occur together with some quartz in a compound vein 25 

to 300 cm thick along a fault zone that is mostly in marble. The ore 

zone strikes east-southeast and dips 40°-45° N. (fig. 45). The 

mineralization extends about 900 m along the strike and has been 

explored by adits and opencuts over a vertical range of 100 m. Stibnite is the most common ore mineral, scheelite is patchy and nearly 

absent from the central part of the lode, and cinnabar is erratically 

distributed as crusts along fractures and in patches and lenses. 

Realgar is more common in schist where cinnabar is rare. Quartz is 

the main gangue mineral and has replaced marble over a width of 

30 cm from the main fractures. Near the surface the stibnite ores 

are oxidized to cervantite and senarmontite, and some of the cinnabar is the orange-red powdery variety of possible supergene origin. Scheelite mineralization results from selective replacement of 

marble along the shear zone walls and locally occurs as nearly pure
74 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

FIGURE 45. Nigde area showing
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 75

lenses more than a meter wide and several meters long. Stibnite and 

quartz are more common within the fault zone as vein material. 

Yildiz found the paragenesis to be calcite-scheelite(brecciation)- 

quartz-barite-arsenopyrite-pyrite-chalcedony-stibnite-cinnabar. The 

scheelite is commonly fractured, but the chalcedony, which locally 

replaces it, along with stibnite and cinnabar, is unfractured. The 

mercury and arsenic mineralization is thought by Dennis to be Alpine, the antimony mineralization early Alpine, and the tungsten 

Hercynian or late Caledonian.

The deposit was worked in antiquity, possibly by the Romans 

judging by ruins in the vicinity, and perhaps for its cinnabar content. In 1963 the rich stibnite part of the ore was discovered and 

mined by a private company, but when an attempt was made to sell

EXPLANATION

White marble

Amphibolite and biotite schist

Pyroxene-bearing amphibolite

Gray and white marble

Biotite schist

Amphibolite

Quartzite

Granodiorite and aplite

55 *\ Strike and dip of beds

Fault

Mine or prospect

Adit

Occurrence

H--

Vein

Hg: mercury

Sb: antimony

W: tungsten

Anticlinical axis

Granodiorite vein

location of mineral deposits.
76 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

a hand-cobbed antimony concentrate at Mersin, cinnabar was discovered in it, rendering its sale impossible. Renewed exploration, 

this time for cinnabar, found some rich pockets and some mined-out 

ancient workings. A consultant at Middle East Technical University, hired to solve the problem of separation of the mercury from 

the antimony, which clogs condensing pipes in mercury retorts, discovered that the ore contained grains of scheelite. Later search at 

the mine with an ultraviolet light, which causes scheelite to 

fluoresce, revealed considerable scheelite throughout much of the 

ore zone. To search for and mine these mixed ores, eight adits have 

been run into the vein, and by 1973 drifts along it totaled about 

1,000 m.

By late 1965 three pairs of inclined retorts were being used to 

process pieces of sorted mercury ore that had a grade of 0.5 to 1.0 

percent (figs. 46-48). In addition, an attempt was being made to 

make stibnite and scheelite concentrates usable by hand sorting and 

by crushing, tabling, and notation. Although there was some 

difficulty in obtaining clean separations, some concentrates of stibnite and of scheelite were marketed. Later mercury ores from the

FIGURE 46. Sorting ore from Giimiisler mine into cinnabar-rich, stibnite-rich, and

scheelite-rich piles.
DESCRIPTIONS OF AREAS AND MINES 77

nearby Mehmetleryurdu Sivrisi deposit, which contained very little 

contaminating stibnite, were processed through the Gumu§ler retorts.

MEHMETLERYURDU SIVRISI TEPE MINE (28)

The Mehmetleryurdu Sivrisi Tepe cinnabar deposit is 3 km 

southwest of the Gumiisler mine on the southeast slope of Mehmetleryurdu Sivrisi, a steep mountain peak more than 2,100 m high 

(see fig. 45). Cinnabar occurs in small irregular veins in brecciated 

silicified limestone in several zones striking east and dipping steeply 

to the south. The ore contains only a little antimony, mostly present 

as the oxide cervantite. Minor amounts of pyrite occur with the cinnabar; no scheelite has been found. The deposit has been mined 

through three adits and a few hundred meters of underground workings. The ore has all been hauled to the Giimusler mine for processing. Grade of the sorted ore ranges from 0.2 to 1.0 percent mercury. 

The exact production is unknown, but by 1973 probably was less 

than 100 flasks.

FIGURE 47. Emptying boxes of hand-sorted ore to be charged into Rossi-type 

retorts at the Gtimus.ler mine.
78 MERCURY DEPOSITS IN TURKEY

FIGURE 48. Inclined-pipe Rossi-type retorts being used to recover mercury from 

hand-sorted ore at Gumiisler mine in 1966.

OTHER DEPOSITS

Except for a little mercury ore mined from a deposit 1 km south of 

the village of Gumii§ler, none of the other deposits shown on the 

map of the Nigde area (fig. 45) has had production in recent time. 

About 50 years ago some antimony ore is reported to have been 

taken from the deposit near Armutlar Tepe.

One small occurrence of cinnabar ore is outside the map area 

about 25 km east of the Gumusler mine, but no mercury has been 

recovered here. In 1972 three small mercury deposits were found 

about 50 km northwest of Nigde and east of Aksaray.

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 fr U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1978 689-035/43