The Minerageny of Cuba

Abstract

The complex and prolific geological scenario of Cuba has led to geological-genetic conditions favorable for the formation of varied deposits, manifestations, and mineralized points of various industrial raw materials, decorative and for multiple practical uses, known worldwide as industrial rocks and minerals, or simply as industrial minerals. Thus, Cuba has large deposits of limestone, loam, dolomite, kaolin, gypsum and anhydrite, rock salt, marbles, sands and clays of different types, zeolites, peat, therapeutic peloids, and many more. There are manifestations of decorative and precious rocks such as jasper, jadeite, different varieties of quartz, and even xylopals. The degree of study of the different varieties of these rocks and industrial minerals is still low in the face of their great diversity and possible uses in different industrial branches of industry, medicine, and in the field of research. Its origin can be summarized in seven genetic groups: magmatic, sedimentary, pyroclastic-sedimentary, metamorphic, skarn, hydrothermal, and supergenic (residual). The different genetic groups are not governed, in general, by the same or similar geotectonic situations. They appear in different geotechnical areas and geological contexts, such as limestone rocks, granitoids, and zeolites. There are also tendencies, in some genetic types, to be located in specific environments such as peat, in the biogenic zones of the Miocene–Quaternary sedimentary cover and, the kaolin, in the Mesozoic accreted terrane.