Bad Ischler Salzberg

The Bad Ischler Salzberg is a salt mine in the municipality of Bad Ischl in the Upper Austrian Salzkammergut .

geography

Ischler Salzberg does not designate a specific mountain, but - in the sense of the mining expression mountain / mountain range for the bedrock in the subsoil - an occurrence or mining area . This is located directly southeast of Bad Ischl in the western foothills of the Dead Mountains . It covers the area of ​​the Sulzbach and is in the east by the [Hohen] Rosenkogel  ( 1359  m above sea level ), in the south by the Zwerchwand (approx.  1320  m above sea level ), in the west by the Kufberg  ( 918  m above sea level) . ) and framed in the north by Mitterberg  ( 1062  m above sea level ). The mining itself has always been driven by the upper Radgrabenbach , which is where today's Ischl town of Salzberg is located. In addition, there is a younger piercing (Erbstollen) directly in the valley of the Traun south of Engleithen , at the western foot of the Kufberg. That is why the name “Ischler Salzberg” is also used for this entire area of ​​the low mountains between Hoher Schrott , Sandling and the Goiserer basin .

The two current brine pipes to Bad Ischl, from Hallstatt and from Altaussee (both continue to Ebensee today), pass this area west in the Trauntal and east in the Rettenbachtal .

geology

The Ischler Salzberg is a type locality for the newly discovered minerals Blödit , Görgeyit , Löweit and Polyhalite . A total of around 20 minerals or their varieties have been found here so far (as of 2013) , in addition to the mainly known evaporites anhydrite , gypsum and halite , celestine , epsomite and hexahydrite ( Epsom salts ), glauberite , kainite and sulfur .

Scientists discovered extremophilic , halophilic microorganisms in Permian rock salt samples .

Building history

Economic starting point

The expansion of the Gmundner salt trade to the countries of the Bohemian Crown during the first half of the 16th century required a corresponding increase in salt production, which the Hallstatt pan alone could no longer handle. After the salt office had learned of acidic paints (puddles) near Ischl in 1562, the Mitterberg tunnel was opened south of Perneck as the first service on the Ischl salt mountain in 1563 . Eight years later, brine could be boiled in Ischl for the first time .

Mine

Perneck

Ludovika gallery (2014)

In the upper eight horizons of Ischler salt Bergs remained mining field with only a few hundred meters in length and about sixty meters relatively small width, each time a main shaft directional usually from 500 to 700 m in length limestone propelled be had. Only below the Ludovika gallery, which was opened in 1747, does the salt store noticeably expand . The Maria-Theresia-tunnel, which is even deeper, was put into construction in 1775. The pending hard limestone only allowed an average annual advance of 18 bars, that was 21.50 m, which corresponded to a daily advance of about ten centimeters. To extract the so-called Werklaist , the clay minerals in the Hasel Mountains, a conveyor track with a track width of 606 mm was laid in the Maria-Theresia-Hauptschachtricht in 1841. The filled wagons rolled out of the tunnel automatically, while the empty hunt could be pushed in by a worker.

On the Ischler Salzberg it was already foreseeable at the beginning of the 19th century that the lower mining limit would gradually reach the Pernecker valley floor and thus no further installation would be possible. To solve this problem, the existing Horizonte from 180 m deeper was proposed already in 1807, Trauntal to under go forth, but long in view of the difficulties for tunneling initially was omitted.

A sounding carried out from 1868 onwards showed that the salt deposit was a further 344 m deep and in 1890 it was decisive for the final decision to build the underpass .

Sulzbach tunnel

From the village of Sulzbach, the hereditary tunnel was finally built in 1895 and, after driving a 3.1 km long stretch in 1906, the connection with the old Pernecker Bauen was established through the Distlerschacht, which is used for water and brine piping and weather management . This created the space for five blind intermediate horizons that do not have a day exit and are only ascended within the Haselgebirge .

The 1916 went into attack continued construction of Erbstollens in 16 kilometers below ground away Ausseer salt warehouse was set at tunnel meter 3,672 because of flooding.

The mining operation in Perneck, where over 260 people were employed in the 19th century, became obsolete in 1906 when it was underpassed and connected to the Kaiser-Franz-Joseph Erbstollen in Lauffen. The tunnels that were still being mined above the Maria Theresa horizon were closed in 1930, only the Amalia tunnel was kept open for the purpose of draining off the rogue water .

Sulzbachfelder

In 1965 and 1966, a deposit that was excavated by probes from above ground was opened up on the nearby Sulzbach fields on the Traun , which lies at a depth between 500 m and 300 m below the valley floor and has been in use since 1967. In this new type of brine extraction process, a coaxial casing is placed in the borehole, whereby water is pressed down through the inner pipe and the brine rises to the surface in the annular space between the outer and inner pipe. This personnel-saving mining process will in all probability completely replace mining by means of mining in the next few years. This means that in the already structurally weak Salzkammergut not only are more industrial jobs lost, but also a centuries-old mining culture is coming to an end.

Scarce accommodation

Until the middle of the 20th century, the personnel in the mining operations of the Austrian saltworks were barracked in the immediate vicinity of the tunnel mouth holes . At the end of the working week, the departure, the mountain houses were abandoned and the miners climbed into the valley. Under the direction of the official builder Johann Georg Panzenberger, the construction of the mountain house at the Josef-Stollen began in 1776, and in 1777 the construction of the mountain house and the mountain forge at the Maria-Theresia-Stollen. After their completion in 1778, the two old miners' houses at the Frauenholz tunnel and the Elisabeth tunnel were demolished. The extensive renovation of the smithy and mountain house at Maria-Theresia-Stollen took place between 1843 and 1845 according to plans by the saltworks draftsman Drexler.

Erbstollen mouth hole

The design of the tunnel portal by Bergrat Karl Balz Edler von Balzberg takes formally and gesturally the motif of ancient memorial arches , which were erected in Rome for memorable events connected with the person of the ruling emperor.

If you consider the fact that Emperor Franz Joseph I himself opened the Erbstollen in the 50th year of his reign, the design intention of this monument becomes understandable.

The reception of the imperial models is obvious. Various aids are used, such as the decorative aedicula with a double column position , the refined wall surface and the depth structure of the vertical front of the passage and parapet in accordance with the mainly vertical architectural elements.

The only incompletely preserved sculpted bronze plates in the architrave zone and above the day wreath fit into the design program, the name of the emperor is taken from the capitalis , the year is Roman, and the miner's symbols mallets and irons are set in laurel.

The portal of the mouth hole is made maßrechtem square masonry Karbacher marble together and over 10 meters high. The tunnel is extended in a rectangular shape, with a width of 2.5 m and a height of 2.3 m results in a profile area of ​​5.75 m ² .

Show mine

The salt mine was already a sight for Ischl spa guests in the mid-19th century and was therefore frequently visited. At that time, visits to the pits by strangers were free of charge, as it would be "neither appropriate nor compatible with the dignity of the state administration to collect certain taxes for the visit". At the end of the 1990s, the mine was no longer used for tourism, i.e. for visitors to visit it.

literature

• A. Aigner: About the Kaiser Franz Josef-Erbstollen in Ischl. In: Communications from the Natural Science Association for Styria. 1904.
• A. Bretschneider: Driving the Kaiser Franz Joseph Erbstollen in Sulzbach near Ischl. In: Austrian weekly for public construction services. Vol. X, issue 41 (1904).
• G. Hattinger: The brine and salt production in the present. In: Upper Austria culture magazine. 34. Vol. 2 (1984), pp. 7f.
• Walter Medwenitsch: The geology of the salt deposits Bad Ischl and Alt-Aussee (Salzkammergut) . with 4 tables: geological map, facies diagram, tectonogram, location sketches and profiles. In: Communications from the Geological Society in Vienna . tape 50 . Vienna 1957, p. 133-200 ( uibk.ac.at [PDF]).
• C. Schedl: About the Ischler Erbstollen. In: Oesterreichische Zeitschrift für Berg- und Hüttenwesen . 1899, pp. 63-64.
• Carl Schraml: The Upper Austrian saltworks from the beginning of the 16th to the middle of the 18th century. Vienna 1932, p. 175ff; Ders .: The Upper Austrian saltworks from 1750 to the time after the French Wars. Vienna 1934, pp. 145ff .; Ders .: The Upper Austrian saltworks from 1818 to the end of the Salt Office in 1850. Vienna 1936, p. 147ff.
• Carl Schraml: The development of the Upper Austrian salt mining in the 16th and 17th centuries. (With special consideration of the three Reformation dragonflies). In: Yearbook of the Upper Austrian Museum Association. 83rd year, Linz 1930, pp. 207ff, online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at.
• Carl Schraml: The salt pans of the Ostmark, their history and technical development. In: Potash related salts and petroleum. Journal for potash, rock salt and the oil industry as well as saltworks, vol. 38, issue 1 (1944).

Web links

• idam.at

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. H. Dietrich: Chemical analysis of the Klebelsberg spring in the Ischl salt mountains. In: Yearbook of the kk geol. Reichsanstalt , Volume 43, Issue 2, 1893, p. 275 ( full article, pp. 275–280; pdf , geologie.ac.at).
2. ^ Ischler Salzberg . Mineralienatlas.de.
3. ↑ Quote C. Schraml: The Upper Austrian saltworks ... 1818 to ... 1850 , p. 157 f.

Coordinates: 47 ° 40 ′ 57.4 ″  N , 13 ° 38 ′ 7.5 ″  E