Bürentsogt

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Bürentsogt
Бүрэнцогт
Country: MongoliaMongolia Mongolia
Aimag : Süchbaatar
Coordinates: 46 ° 44 '  N , 111 ° 42'  E Coordinates: 46 ° 44 '22 "  N , 111 ° 42' 9"  E
Height: 1187  m
Removal of UB
Beeline: 400 km
Bürentsogt (Mongolia)
Bürentsogt
Bürentsogt
Location of Bürentsogt in Mongolia

Bürentsogt ( Mongolian Бүрэнцогт ) is a settlement in Mongolia , a former mine and deposit or occurrence of tungsten ores located at the same place .

The locality

Bürentsogt is a settlement in the eastern steppe area of Mongolia. Geographically, the landscape around Bürentsogt belongs to the "wavy, hilly Middle Chalcha plains" according to MURZAJEW. The village belongs administratively to the province of Süchbaatar-Aimag (Mongolian: Сүхбаатар Аймаг). The location is 400 km as the crow flies in an east-southeast direction from the capital of the country, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolian: Улаанбаатар). The treeless steppe landscape around Bürentsogt is morphologically poorly structured. The formerly important, now derelict mining settlement Bürentsogt is located in a flat valley basin at about 1200  m .

The place Bürentsogt 1977

The place Bürentsogt was important in the Mongolian People's Republic (MVR) until the end of the 1970s as the location of a mine and processing factory (Bürentsogt / Wolframite mine ). The place was created at the same time as mining began in 1948. The settlement's infrastructure had been relatively well developed by the mid-1970s. There were: Central diesel-electric station , connection to the nationwide telephone network , post station , water supply from deep wells by means of truck water vehicles. The settlement in the Bürentsogt valley consisted of 80 to 90 solid, one-story houses (administration buildings, residential buildings, functional buildings) of various sizes, in addition to the daytime facilities of the mine and the industrial buildings of the processing plant. In particular, the following should be mentioned: hospital , school , sports field , kindergarten , crèche , administration building of the mine, workshops and material storage, post office, gas station , bank branch , bakery , restaurant with hotel , cultural center with a cinema , various shops, both for food such as bread and canned goods for daily needs as well as for technical household appliances . In addition to the mining operation, there was another commercial enterprise in Bürentsogt, a so-called Artel (Mongolian / Russian: Артель) mainly operating as a textile processing cooperative . To the north of the town center, there was a housing estate consisting of around 200 stationary yurts . In 1975 Bürentsogt had 2,100 inhabitants.

The former town of Bürentsogt, summer 2010

With the closure of the wolframite mine after 1978, Bürentsogt lost its position as an important housing estate. In 2010 the Bürentsogt location was represented by only a few yurts and the ruins of the earlier communal and industrial development. Only a few buildings have been preserved and are still in use. Ruins and remaining development of the central location of Bürentsogt can be seen in the inserted satellite photo.

Wolframite deposits Bürentsogt / Schematic geological and topographical representation

Wolframite deposit and tungsten deposit

The wolframite deposits of Bürentsogt were discovered in 1944 during hydrogeological work by the Soviet geologist Stefanenko . They are subdivided into the Bürentsogt-Ost deposit and the Bürentsogt-West deposit about one kilometer away. Both deposits are quartz- tungstite veins, both were geologically explored, but mining was only carried out on Bürentsogt-West. The attached map sketch provides a geological overview, the wolframite deposits and their surroundings.

Structure diagram of the Bürentsogt mine
Reconstruction of Bürentsogt 1971 to 1974

The quartz-wolframite veins from Bürentsogt-Ost set up in a Jurassic granite stock of the type “rare metal granites of Eastern Mongolia” (according to KOVALENKO, 1971). In contrast, the quartz-wolframite dikes of the Bürentsogt-West deposit have perm - to Triassic contact metamorphic schist - and sandstone sequences as secondary rock . A partially eroded biotite granite , an equivalent to the granite from Bürentsogt-Ost, was also detected by deep boreholes about 600 m below the turf in the area of ​​the Bürentsogt-West deposit .

The structures of the Bürentsogt-West deposit and its geochemical peculiarities were examined in detail through numerous exploratory work from 1944 to 1977 by Soviet and Mongolian geologists and, since 1973, by geologists from the GDR . For the mining operations, ore reserves were calculated up to the 360 ​​m level.

According to IVANOVA, 1976 Bürentsogt-West belongs to the sulphide- rich , molybdenite-containing quartz vein type of the wolframite mineralization of eastern Mongolia. A compilation of the Bürentsogter ore and gangue types can be found in the table on the left.

Buzo 12.jpeg
Tungsten rich ore, underground inclined bore 1/74, corridor 3p, 460 m below the turf
Wolframite mine Bürentsogt, 310 m level, corridor 22: beryl and muscovite on quartz
Wolframite mine Bürentsogt, 310 m level, corridor 22 east: Wolframite crystals in quartz, Salband

In the invariably steep corridors of the deposit, the accompanying minerals of the wolframite mineralization were mainly white, coarse quartz. Typical for the ore veins in Bürentsogt was the occurrence of stalky, coarse, light green-yellow beryl (see photo), often formed in mineral aggregates the size of a decimeter . The actual, very sedentary tungsten mineralization consisted of black, coarse wolframite nests (see photo). Other tungsten minerals, such as scheelite , had no economic significance. The mean WO 3 content of the main veins was 1 to 2%, whereby their thickness could reach about a meter.

The Bürentsogt-West deposit consisted of a system of several quartz-wolframite dikes, often arranged like a backdrop and crossing each other, up to 350 m in length and more than 500 m in depth . The adjacent sketch shows the structure of the deposits using the example of the ridge mapping of the 260 m level.

To the lowest floor of the mine, the 360 m level, the Wolframitvorräte the deposit have been removed. Below the 360 ​​m level, such abundant ore reserves were no longer calculated that economic extraction, necessarily combined with further sinking of the pit, would have been possible. Isolated rich ore samples (see photo) were detectable during drilling work but also in depths more than 100 m below the 360 ​​m level.

Wolframite mine

Bürentsogt was a civil engineering mine together with the associated processing plant - located directly at the settlement of the same name (Bürentsogt / Ortschaft) - in which the ores from the Bürentsogt-West wolframite deposit were mined and processed from 1948 to at least 1978 down to a depth of 360 m below the turf. At that time the mine was one of the deepest ore mines in the Mongolian People's Republic. For the period from 1948 to 1976, i.e. for almost the entire operating time of the mine, the following key production figures were given: Total amount of ore - 400,969 t and from it production of 5,691 t tungsten ore concentrate (60% WO 3 content) and 856 t tungsten ore concentrate (20th century) % WO 3 content).

The ore was extracted in the ridge construction , especially the ridge joint construction with storage. The distance between the bottom of the conveyor lines was 40 m up to the 260 m level, then 50 m up to the 360 ​​m level. The ore was transported to the surface via a central shaft. The ore was transported from the shaft to the processing plant about 1 km away using a fleet of truck dump trucks . After crushing the raw ore and the subsequent processing and enrichment process, the end product of the first raw material processing stage was an ore concentrate according to industry standards (GOST 2123-56:> 60% WO 3 , <1.5% sulfur, <0.15% copper), the End product of the mining operation.

Wolframite mine Bürentsogt, underground conveyor line

The construction of the mine and its management were initially carried out with support from the USSR, later the mining was continued independently by the Mongolian company, which was subordinate to the Ministry of Energy and Geology in Ulan Bator. From November 1971, when ore extraction had progressed to the lowest level at that time, the 260 m level, a reconstruction of the mine and the processing plant was started, at which the GDR on the basis of trade and economic agreements was involved in the cooperation of the Comecon states . The agreement concerning Bürentsogt was dated March 4, 1971: "Agreement between the government of the GDR and the government of the MVR on cooperation in the area of ​​increasing the production of wolframite concentrate at the Wolframite mine Bürentsogt".

The reconstruction project had an output volume of 13.1 million marks. The repayment of the services to be provided by the GDR was partly agreed between the MVR and the GDR in the form of the delivery of tungsten ore concentrate.

View over the valley from Bürentsogt to the west to the processing plant, autumn 1974

The reconstruction project, which was implemented by technical achievements of the GDR and the MVR-side to 1974, mainly consisted of the sinking of the main shaft of the mine up to a 360-m level, including the establishment of a new winding tower together with carriers installation, various other degrading preparatory Roadway drivages and mining facilities such as surface ore bunkers and others. The machinery in the processing plant was completely renewed. The technical renewal was accompanied by a geological depth and flank exploration of the deposit, also with partial services from the GDR and MVR.

Daytime facilities and headframe Bürentsogt, 1977
Commemorative coin of the VEB Schachtbau Nordhausen / Mansfeldkombinat "Wilhelm Pieck" Eisleben

The general supplier for the reconstruction of the mine in Bürentsogt was VEB Ingan Berlin, a company of the VEB Schwermaschinen Kombinates Ernst Thälmann (SKET) , who carried out this work together with various subcontractor companies from the GDR and contractual services on the MVR side (see table of subcontractors). VEB Schachtbau Nordhausen had the largest scope of services . The mine reconstruction was completed on schedule. Was Bürentsogt the only Mongolian production plant in which a GDR economic aid for the coal and steel industry has made the MVR.

According to the MVR-GDR government agreement, the planned GDR engagement in Bürentsogt included operational technical assistance after the actual reconstruction work was completed. In the period from 1974 to January 1978, VEB Kombinat Kali Sondershausen, a mining company assigned to the Ministry of Ore Mining, Metallurgy and Potash of the GDR (MEMK), performed this task in the Mongolian mining company. The “Production Aid Bürentsogt” provided support for the regular Mongolian production operations by GDR specialists for mining and processing. Groups of miners and engineering staff were used for different tasks every year. The GDR specialist group in Bürentsogt had a target size of around 25 to 30 people between 1974 and 1977.

In the period 1976/77, geological exploration work was carried out for the last time in the Bürentsogt mine by means of underground inclined drilling by a joint MVR / GDR expedition ("Joint Geologist Expedition Salchit") to obtain the economically recoverable ore reserves required for continued operation of the mine below the deepest level at that time, the 360 -m-sole. Such a proof of inventory was not successful. As a result, the GDR production aid was discontinued in 1977 and the Mongolian mining company ended the mining operation in Bürentsogt a little later after extracting the remaining supplies above the 360 ​​m level without digging any more shaft. The exact date of the mine closure is not known.

With around 30 years of operation, Bürentsogt was the longest-lived ore mine in Mongolia at that time.

literature

  • Joachim Stübner (Ed.): Geologists and miners in Mongolia. German-Mongolian cooperation 1972 to 1991. Project Piccolo, Dresden 2011, ISBN 978-3-933236-45-6 .
  • Author collective: Burenzogt. The mine at the end of the world. Self-published by Dr. Rainer Gebhardt, 2011.
  • Author collective: Chronik Schachtbau Nordhausen, Vol. 2 Part 2 - Technology in Transition. Publisher: Schachtbau Nordhausen GmbH, 2006, ISBN 3-9811208-0-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. EM Murzaev: The Mongolian People's Republic - Physico-geographer. Description. German edition, VEB Geographisch Kartographische Anstalt Gotha, 1954.
  2. Bürentsogt satellite photo (marking: block house, former living quarters for GDR miners, 1971–1977; also shown in the adjacent picture from summer 2010)
  3. Joachim Stübner (Ed.): Geologists and miners in Mongolia. German-Mongolian cooperation 1972 to 1991. Project Piccolo, Dresden 2011, p. 83
  4. ^ WN Kovalenko (main editor): The rare metal granites of Mongolia. russ., publishing house "Nauka", Moscow 1971.
  5. ^ GF Ivanova: Mineralogy and geochemistry of tungsten mineralization in Mongolia. russ., publishing house "Nauka", Moscow 1976.
  6. Joachim Stübner (Ed.): Geologists and miners in Mongolia. German-Mongolian cooperation 1972 to 1991. Project Piccolo, Dresden 2011, p. 85.
  7. Joachim Stübner (Ed.): Geologists and miners in Mongolia. German-Mongolian cooperation 1972 to 1991. Project Piccolo, Dresden 2011, p. 98.
  8. authors: Burenzogt. The mine at the end of the world. Self-published by Dr. Rainer Gebhardt, 2011, p. 38.