Falun Mine

Last updated
Falun Mine
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Falu koppargruva July 2017 01.jpg
The Copper Mine in Falun, the Great Pit
Location Falun Municipality, Dalarna County, Sweden
Part ofMining Area of the Great Copper Mountain in Falun
Criteria Cultural: (ii), (iii), (v)
Reference 1027
Inscription2001 (25th Session)
Coordinates 60°35′56″N15°36′44″E / 60.59889°N 15.61222°E / 60.59889; 15.61222
Sweden Dalarna location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location of Falun Mine in Dalarna
Sweden relief location map.jpg
Red pog.svg
Falun Mine (Sweden)
The Copper Mine in Falun, the Great Pit Falu koppargruva.jpg
The Copper Mine in Falun, the Great Pit

Falun Mine (Swedish : Falu Gruva) was a mine in Falun, Sweden, that operated for a millennium from the 10th century to 1992. It produced as much as two-thirds of Europe's copper needs [1] and helped fund many of Sweden's wars in the 17th century. Technological developments at the mine had a profound influence on mining globally for two centuries. [2] The mine is now a museum and in 2001 was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Contents

History

1/8 share of the Falun mine, dated June 16, 1288. Stora Kopparberg 1288.jpg
1/8 share of the Falun mine, dated June 16, 1288.

There are no written accounts establishing exactly when mining operations at Falun Mine began. Archaeological and geological studies indicate, with considerable uncertainty, that mining operations started sometime around the year 1000. No significant activities had begun before 850, but the mine was definitely operating by 1080. Objects from the 10th century have been found containing copper from the mine. In the beginning, operations were of a small scale, with local farmers gathering ore, smelting it, and using the metal for household needs. [3]

Around the time of Magnus III, king of Sweden from 1275 to 1290, a more professional operation began to take place. Nobles and foreign merchants from Lübeck had taken over from farmers. The merchants transported and sold the copper in Europe but also influenced the operations and developed the methods and technology used for mining. The first written document about the mine is from 1288; it records that, in exchange for an estate, the Bishop of Västerås acquired a 12.5% interest in the mine. [4]

By the mid 14th century, the mine had grown into a vital national resource, and a large part of the revenues for the Swedish state in the coming centuries would be from the mine. The then king, Magnus IV, visited the area personally and drafted a charter for mining operations, ensuring the financial interest of the sovereign. [5]

Methods

Wheelbarrows and other tools used for mining. Falu gruva 1.jpg
Wheelbarrows and other tools used for mining.

The principal method for extracting copper was heating the rock via large fires, known as fire-setting. When the rock cooled down, it would become brittle and crack, allowing manual tools such as wedges and sledge hammers to be brought to bear. After the ore had been transported out of the mine it was roasted to reduce sulfur content in open hearths. The thick, poisonous smoke produced would be a distinguishing feature of the Falun area for centuries. After the roasting, the ore was smelted; the output of which was a copper rich material. The cycle of roasting and smelting was repeated several times until crude copper was produced. This was the final output from the mine; further refinement took place at copper refineries elsewhere. This process was used without any major change for seven centuries, until the end of the 19th century. [6] It is likely that the methods and technology for fire-setting and drainage were imported from German mines, such as in the Harz Mountains. [7]

Free miners

The organizational structure of Falun Mine created under the 1347 charter was advanced for its time. Free miners owned shares of the operation, proportional to their ownership of copper smelters. The structure was precursor to modern joint stock companies, and Stora Enso, the modern successor to the old mining company, is often referred to as the oldest joint stock company still operational in the world. [2]

Golden era

In the 17th century, production capacity peaked. During this time, the output from the mine was used to fund various wars of Sweden during its great power era. The Privy Council of Sweden referred to the mine as the nation's treasury and stronghold. The point of maximum production occurred in 1650, with over 3,000 tonnes of copper produced. [1]

The mountain had been mined for nearly half a millennium towards the end of its golden era. Production had intensified in the preceding decades, and by 1687 the rock was crisscrossed by numerous shafts and cave-ins were not unusual. Great effort went into producing maps of the mine for navigation, but there was no overall organization nor any estimation of the strength of the mountain. In the summer of 1687, great rumblings could be heard regularly from the mountain. On Midsummer's Eve of that year, the dividing wall between the main pits and the foundations gave way, and a significant portion of the mine collapsed. This could easily have become a great catastrophe, killing and trapping the hundreds of men working in the mine, had it not occurred on Midsummer's Eve, one of the two days of the year on which the miners were not working, the other being Christmas. [8]

Stora stoten panorama 2010.jpg
The great pit that opened up in the 1687 collapse was over a hundred meters (300 ft) deep, photo from 2010.

Life in the mine

A drift in Falun mine. Falu gruva4.jpg
A drift in Falun mine.

Fires were lit at the end of the day to heat the ore and allowed to burn through the night. The next morning the fires would be put out and the ore broken loose. In this manner, the miners could advance about 1 m (3 ft) per month. The miners working the fires and breaking the rock were the best paid and most skilled. Hand barrows were used to transport the broken ore, in relays of about 20 m (70 ft) with multiple teams working long distances. This was usually the work newcomers were assigned to prove themselves. The work was hard and the mines very hot from the constant fires, and the miners were good customers of local drinking establishments. Drunkenness was considered quite normal for miners. [9]

Carl Linnaeus visited the mine and produced a vivid description of the life of the miners. He described that the miners climbed rickety ladders with sweat pouring from their bodies like "water from a bath". He continued: "The Falun Mine is one of the great wonders of Sweden but as horrible as hell itself". Linnaeus' description of the environment the miners worked in is as follows: "Soot and darkness surrounded them on all sides. Stones, gravel, corrosive vitriol, drips, smoke, fumes, heat, dust, were everywhere". [10]

Economic impact

A postcard depicting the mine, circa 1907. Falu gruva.jpg
A postcard depicting the mine, circa 1907.

Sweden had a virtual monopoly on copper which it retained throughout the 17th century. The only other country with a comparable copper output was Japan, but European imports from Japan were insignificant. In 1690, Erik Odhelius, a prominent metallurgist, was dispatched by the King to survey the European metal market. Although copper production had already begun to decline by the time he made his report, something Odhelius made no secret of, he stated, "For the production of copper Sweden has always been like a mother, and although in many places within and without Europe some copper is extracted it counts for nothing next to the abundance of Swedish copper". [11]

By modern standards, however, the output was not large. Peak production barely reached 3,000 tonnes of copper per year, falling to less than 2,000 tonnes by 1665; from 1710 to 1720 it was barely 1,000 tonnes per year. Present worldwide copper production is 18.3 million tons per year; Chuquicamata, a modern copper mine in Chile, has maintained an annual output exceeding 500,000 tonnes for decades. [12]

Modern history

The main museum building Gruvmuseetfalun1.jpg
The main museum building

Copper production declined during the 18th century, and the mining company began diversifying. It supplemented copper extraction with iron and timber production. Production of the iconic falu red paint began in earnest. In the 19th century, iron and forest products continued to grow in their importance. In 1881 gold was discovered in Falun Mine, resulting in a short-lived gold rush. A total of 5 tonnes of gold would eventually be produced.[ citation needed ]

By the late 20th century, the mine was no longer economically viable. On December 8, 1992, the last shot was fired in the mine, and all commercial mining ceased. Today the mine is owned by the Stora Kopparberget foundation which operates the museum and tours. [13]

World Heritage Site

In 2001 Falun Mine was selected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of 15 in Sweden. In addition to the mine itself, the World Heritage area covers the town of Falun, including 17th century miners’ cottages, residential areas, [14] and Bergsmansbygden, a wider area that the free miners settled and in which they often built estates mirroring their wealth. [15]

Museum

In 1922 the old administrative building (Swedish : Stora Gruvstugan) that had been built in the 1770s was converted into the Mining Museum. In 1966 the building had to be demolished due to an expansion of the mine and a copy was made. [16] The museum has around 100,000 visitors per year. [17] It displays the history of mining at Falun Mine through the centuries; including the production of minerals, models of machinery, tools, and the people at the mine. It also has a large collection of portraits, starting from the 17th century, of significant people at the mine. [18]

Discovery of new elements

The chemical element tantalum was first discovered in 1802 by Anders Ekeberg in samples coming from Falun and England. [19] :345–352

Selenium was initially discovered and isolated in 1817 by Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Johann Gottlieb Gahn as an impurity of pyrite coming from the Falun mine that had been used in sulfuric acid production. [19]

In 1815, Berzelius thought he had discovered a new element from an ore coming from Falun, and chose the name thorium for it. He later noticed that he had been mistaken, and that the substance was yttrium phosphate rather than a new element. When he actually discovered what is now known as thorium in 1829, he reused the name for the new discovery. [19] :558

Nils Gabriel Sefström, discoverer of vanadium, and Johan Gottlieb Gahn, discoverer of manganese, both lived in Falun at certain points in their lives. [19] :311

Notes

  1. 1 2 "1600s - The period of greatness". Falu Gruva. Archived from the original on 2016-10-09. Retrieved 2016-08-24.
  2. 1 2 ICOMOS, p. 5
  3. Rydberg, pp. 9–11
  4. Rydberg, p. 12
  5. Rydberg, p. 13
  6. Rydberg, p. 14
  7. ICOMOS, p. 1
  8. Rydberg, p. 44
  9. Rydberg, pp. 43–44
  10. Kjellin, p. 124
  11. Heckscher, p. 87
  12. "Copper" (PDF). Mineral Commodity Summaries 2015. Retrieved 2016-08-24.
  13. "1900s and the end of the mining operation". Falu Gruva. Archived from the original on 2016-11-18. Retrieved 2016-08-24.
  14. "The town of Falun". Falun World Heritage Site. Retrieved 2009-10-29.[ permanent dead link ]
  15. "Homesteader estates". Falun World Heritage Site. Retrieved 2009-10-29.[ permanent dead link ]
  16. "Museum - Visitfalun". 2011-04-16. Archived from the original on 2011-04-16. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  17. Kjellin, p.126.
  18. "Mining Museum". Falu Gruva. Archived from the original on 2016-11-10. Retrieved 2016-08-24.
  19. 1 2 3 4 Weeks, Mary Elvira (1956). The Discovery of the Elements (6th ed.).

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rammelsberg</span> UNESCO World Heritage Site

The Rammelsberg is a mountain, 635 metres (2,083 ft) high, on the northern edge of the Harz range, south of the historic town of Goslar in the North German state of Lower Saxony. The mountain is the location of an important silver, copper, and lead mine. When it closed in 1988, it had been the only mine still working continuously for over 1,000 years. Because of its long history of mining and testimony to the advancement and exchange of technology over many centuries, the visitor mine of Rammelsberg was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuquicamata</span> Largest open pit mine in the world by volume

Chuquicamata is the largest open pit copper mine in terms of excavated volume in the world. It is located in the north of Chile, just outside Calama, at 2,850 m (9,350 ft) above sea level. It is 215 km (134 mi) northeast of Antofagasta and 1,240 km (770 mi) north of the capital, Santiago. Flotation and smelting facilities were installed in 1952, and expansion of the refining facilities in 1968 made 500,000 tons annual copper production possible in the late 1970s. Previously part of Anaconda Copper, the mine is now owned and operated by Codelco, a Chilean state enterprise, since the Chilean nationalization of copper in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its depth of 850 metres (2,790 ft) makes it the second deepest open-pit mine in the world, after Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codelco</span> Chilean copper company

The National Copper Corporation of Chile, abbreviated as Codelco, is a Chilean state-owned copper mining company. It was formed in 1976 from foreign-owned copper companies that were nationalised in 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Falu red</span> Color of dye

Falu red or falun red is a permeable red paint commonly used on wooden cottages and barns in Sweden, Finland, and Norway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Falun</span> Place in Dalarna, Sweden

Falun is a city and the seat of Falun Municipality in Dalarna County, Sweden, with 37,291 inhabitants in 2010. It is also the capital of Dalarna County. Falun forms, together with Borlänge, a metropolitan area with just over 100,000 inhabitants.

Boliden AB is a Swedish multinational metals, mining, and smelting company headquartered in Stockholm. The company produces zinc, copper, lead, nickel, silver, and gold, with operations in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mining in Australia</span> Primary sector industry

Mining in Australia has long been a significant primary sector industry and contributor to the Australian economy by providing export income, royalty payments and employment. Historically, mining booms have also encouraged population growth via immigration to Australia, particularly the gold rushes of the 1850s. Many different ores, gems and minerals have been mined in the past and a wide variety are still mined throughout the country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dannemora mine</span>

The Dannemora mine at Dannemora in Uppsala County, Sweden was once one of the most important iron ore mines in Sweden. The mine was closed by its owners SSAB in 1992. It may have been open since the 13th century, but the first documentary reference was in 1481.

Mount Isa Mines Limited ("MIM") operates the Mount Isa copper, lead, zinc and silver mines near Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia as part of the Glencore group of companies. For a brief period in 1980, MIM was Australia's largest company. It has pioneered several significant mining industry innovations, including the Isa Process copper refining technology, the Isasmelt smelting technology, and the IsaMill fine grinding technology, and it also commercialized the Jameson Cell column flotation technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copper mining in the United States</span>

In the United States, copper mining has been a major industry since the rise of the northern Michigan copper district in the 1840s. In 2017, the US produced 1.27 million metric tonnes of copper, worth $8 billion, making it the world's fourth largest copper producer, after Chile, China, and Peru. Copper was produced from 23 mines in the US. Top copper producing states in 2014 were Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Montana. Minor production also came from Idaho and Missouri. As of 2014, the US had 45 million tonnes of known remaining reserves of copper, the fifth largest known copper reserves in the world, after Chile, Australia, Peru, and Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mining and metallurgy in medieval Europe</span> Medieval European history

During the Middle Ages, between the 5th and 16th century AD, Western Europe saw a period of growth in the mining industry. The first important mines were those at Goslar in the Harz mountains, taken into commission in the 10th century. Another notable mining town is Falun in Sweden where copper has been mined since at least the 10th century and possibly even earlier.

Phoenix Mine was an open pit and underground mining operation in city of Phoenix in the Boundary Country region of British Columbia, Canada that operated in the early and mid 20th century, run by the Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company. It was discovered in 1891, but was a lower grade copper deposit than the Rossland and Slocan deposits. The low grade and the nearest railroad being 75 miles (121 km) resulted in the Phoenix receiving less attention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mining in the Upper Harz</span> Historical German industry

Mining in the Upper Harz region of central Germany was a major industry for several centuries, especially for the production of silver, lead, copper, and, latterly, zinc as well. Great wealth was accumulated from the mining of silver from the 16th to the 19th centuries, as well as from important technical inventions. The centre of the mining industry was the group of seven Upper Harz mining towns of Clausthal, Zellerfeld, Sankt Andreasberg, Wildemann, Grund, Lautenthal und Altenau.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erzberg mine</span> Mine in Eisenerz, Styria, Austria

The Erzberg mine is a large open-pit mine located in Eisenerz, Styria, in the central-western part of Austria, 60 km north-west of Graz and 260 km south-west of the capital, Vienna. The deposit lies at the Northern fringes of the Eastern greywacke zone, a band of Paleozoic metamorphosed sedimentary rocks that run east-west through the Austrian Alps, rich in copper and iron ore. Erzberg is the largest iron ore reserves in Austria, having estimated reserves of 235 million tonnes of ore. The mine produces around 3.2 million tonnes of pure iron ore per year. It is also the site of the annual Erzberg Rodeo hard enduro motorbike race.

Tin mining began early in the Bronze Age, as bronze is a copper-tin alloy. Tin is a relatively rare element in the Earth's crust, with approximately 2 ppm, compared to iron with 50,000 ppm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin</span> UNESCO World Heritage Site in northeast France

The Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin is a mining basin in Northern France that stretches across the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments. The region is famous for its long history of coal extraction and its testimony to a significant period in the history of industrialisation in Europe, and as a result it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2012. This area has been shaped by three centuries of coal extraction from the late 17th century through the 20th century, and demonstrates the evolution of coal mining techniques and worker conditions during that time.

The Bor mine is a large copper mine located in the east of Serbia in Bor District. Bor is one of the largest copper reserves in Serbia and in the world, having estimated reserves of 200 million tonnes of ore grading 1.5% copper. The area had been mined for gold as far back as at least the ancient Romans, but copper ore was only discovered, accidentally, in 1902.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Britannia Mines Concentrator</span> Historic site in British Columbia, Canada

The Britannia Mines Concentrator is a National Historic Site of Canada. The large, inclined gravity mill was built on the northwest side of Mount Sheer to assist the transfer of copper ore through the chemical and mechanical processes of the plant. It is a landmark in Britannia Beach, British Columbia some forty-five kilometers north of Vancouver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mining in Sweden</span> Mining industry in Sweden

The mining industry in Sweden has a history dating back 6,000 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Industrial Revolution in Wales</span> Aspect of Welsh industrial history

The Industrial Revolution in Wales was the adoption and developments of new technologies in Wales in the 18th and 19th centuries as part of the Industrial Revolution, resulting in increases in the scale of industry in Wales.

References