Thin coal seams found in the Lions Cove Formation, Polonia Glacier Group (Middle Eocene, upper part) at King George Bay, King George Island (South Shetland Islands, West Antarctica), represent lustrous (vitrine) brown-coal metaphase. The coal from the lower seam represents carbonized wood, probably angiosperm, that from the upper ones originated due to accumulation of branches or larger wood fragments and leaf remains. These coals are slightly older than metaxylite brown coal previously described from Admiralty Bay on King George Island, and dated at Eocene-Oligocene boundary. Both coal occurrences are evidences for a warm climate which prevailed in the Antarctic Peninsula sector during the Arctowski Interglacial (ca 50—32 Ma).

Anthracite coal matter fills irregular voids in dolostones of the Upper Proterozoic Höferpynten Formation in the Hornsund area, south Spitsbergen. The coals are of organic origin, as indicated by a variety of coal-petrographic studies, and by association with algal structures. They probably derived from bitumina accumulated in voids of dolostone at an early diagenelic stage. The degree of coalification (graphitization) is high but diversified, suggesting several coalification stages, probably related t o successive metamorphic events. The oldest changes may correspond to initial stage of t h e greenschist-amphibolite phase of regional metamorphism, with temperatures of over 500°C and pressure of over 20,000 MPa . Multiphase graphite crystallites which occur in t h e coal are mainly fibrous. There are also crystallites which precipitated from gaseous phase, and pyrolitic graphite; they may have originated due to action of mesothermal solutions which had produced ore-bearing veins.

The main subject of research in this paper is glauconite with its useful parameters, which is the object of exploitation in the “Górka Lubartowska-Niedźwiada” deposit. The main glauconitic horizon (lower Eocene) is built by loamy fine-grained and medium greenish sands with marine fauna and fragments of amber (ca. 7 m thick). Thin lamins and pockets of silts containing phosphorites and also glauconitic sands with underlaying very thin quartz-glauconitic sands are found at the bottom of this layer. The glauconite deposit in “Górka Lubartowska-Niedźwiada” is an amount of ca. 30% by volume of the main glauconitic horizon. Glauconite of the 1M polytype (XRD) shows large granulometric and morphological differentiation (SEM-EDS). It frequently contains aggregations of euhedral or framboidal pyrite grains (RS), which is indicative of the euxinic nature of the formation environment of the rocks under study. The individual glauconite grains show distinct chemical variability, manifested in a lower share of Al2O3 and an increased content of MgO and CaO (EPMA, XRF). At the same time, a large share of K2O (above 8% by weight) allows it to be included in highly matured glauconite, thus it can be considered as a potential raw material for the production of mineral fertilizers. The association of glauconite with phosphates (SEM-EDS) and anatase inclusions in the grains of glauconite (RS) indirectly point to the contribution of the decomposing organic matter to the formation of grains of this mineral. The xylite fragments preserved in the sediment show a low degree of coalification, which is typical of soft lignite. This also shows that the transformation process was taking place under a relatively small overburden.