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What are the Giant Quartz Veins?

Quartz veins occur ubiquitously in orogenic settings and are considered as valuable tools for grasping the mechanisms of fluid flow, vein cement precipitation and quartz deformation, as well as the deformation kinematics and geochemical history of their host rocks.

The dimensions of quartz veins can vary dramatically within the same tectonic setting, from millimetric to hectometric thicknesses and centimetric to kilometric lengths. Those veins visible in satellite and photogrammetric imagery, i.e., mappable at 1:25,000 scale, are referred to as “Giant” Quartz Veins (GQVs). Despite the ubiquity of these impressive structures, their formation process or mechanisms remain misunderstood. They are supposed to be formed from extremely large quantities of externally-derived circulating fluids, although it has also been demonstrated that such high fluid/rock ratios are not necessarily required, and thus that the fluid sources may be local.

What is the GIVEPY Database?

The GIVEPY database contains the 741 Giant Quartz Veins of the Pyrenees indexed as polygon-type features. Associated with each feature are 18 attributes which hold additional information about their geological setting, outcropping geometry (area, width, length and azimuth), centroid, minimum and maximum coordinates, host rock/s (age, type and lithology) and original source layers.

The GIVEPY database aims to be a useful resource for academic research and structural geology and tectonics teaching. It represents a “targeting tool” for location choice before carrying out structural or geochemical investigations on GQVs, their host rocks or their related (macro to micro) structures.