Visitor mine St. Christoph
| St. Christoph | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| General information about the mine | |||
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| Mining technology | Underground mining | ||
| Rare minerals | Christophite | ||
| Information about the mining company | |||
| Operating company | Knappschaft Breitenbrunn eV | ||
| Start of operation | 1558 | ||
| End of operation | 1945 | ||
| Successor use | Show mine | ||
| Funded raw materials | |||
| Degradation of | Iron, tin, sulfur, copper, arsenic | ||
| Geographical location | |||
| Coordinates | 50 ° 28 '48 " N , 12 ° 45' 16.5" E | ||
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| local community | Breitenbrunn / Erzgeb. | ||
| District ( NUTS3 ) | Erzgebirgskreis | ||
| country | Free State of Saxony | ||
| Country | Germany | ||
| District | Schwarzenberg district | ||
The St. Christoph visitor mine is located in the Saxon community of Breitenbrunn. The treasure trove of the same name was first mentioned in 1558. Active mining was finally stopped in 1945. Mainly magnetic iron ore , tin stone and sulphides were mined .
geography
The visitor mine is located on Schachtstrasse in Breitenbrunn in the Western Ore Mountains . It can be reached via the S 272 district road and the railway, which runs along the Schwarzwassertal valley, and is located approx. 700 m east of the Breitenbrunn stop.
The tunnel mouth hole was at 655 m above sea level. NN set on the slope. The tunnel runs about 330 m in an easterly direction and then swings to the NE. At about 500 from the mouth hole it reaches the mallet shaft . The actual ore deposit is reached after a further 120 m.
geology
The St. Christoph treasure trove was built on an approx. 1 to 6 m thick skarn ore deposit , which extends over approx. 1.2 km in a NW-SE direction. It is located with similar deposits in the outer of two zones that are concentrically ring-shaped around Schwarzenberg / Erzgeb. extend.
The ore deposits were formed after layers of sedimentary rock with embedded limestone and dolomite layers were folded at high pressure and temperature and metamorphically overprinted. Here, formed mica schist and gneiss in the dolomite - marble is embedded layers shaped. During the ascent of the Eibenstocker granite - pluton the marble was by aqueous solutions metasomatically in garnet - pyroxene converted -Skarn. This has nest-like ore enrichments and is locally penetrated by ore veins .
The ores mined were the minerals typical for Skarne magnetite , zinc blende , arsenical and arsenic gravel , copper pyrites and sulfur pyrites , which occurred in constantly changing frequency. Tin stone , more rarely silver and uranium minerals appeared in the corridors .
A special feature of the treasure trove is a black, iron-containing zinc cover, which August Breithaupt named Christophit after this pit in 1863 .
history
The mining in the St.-Christoph-mine began around 1557/58 with the acquisition of mining rights by Hans Mueller of Berneck . As early as 1569 he and his sons had a smelting furnace , a vitriol and sulfur hut and, in 1593, an iron hammer to process the ores built in Breitenhof with the permission of the elector . About 100 people lived there depending on this pit.
The main operating times were from 1567 to 1572, 1665 to 1784 and 1800 to 1910. In between, the mine was kept within time limits . In addition to the factors influencing other Ore Mountains mines, such as war and changing profitability, the mine struggled above all with water ingress and the strongly changing ore management. The last operating period for the time being began in 1937, when Sachsz Bergwerks GmbH cleared the mine again as part of the self-sufficiency efforts of the Third Reich , and ended in April 1945. Iron ore and the resulting complex ores were primarily mined .
The investigations by Wismut AG for uranium in 1945/46 were negative. With that, St. Christoph was finally shut down.
Visitor mine
After the founding of the Breitenbrunn Knappschaft in 1983, the development of the St. Christoph treasure trove soon began. In September 2000 the mine was opened as a show mine . In the 1 to 1.5 hour guided tours about 1.2 km of the pit are driven and u. a. Colored sintering of copper, arsenic, iron and zinc ores shown.
literature
- Richard Beck : About the ore deposits around Schwarzenberg in the Ore Mountains . In: Yearbook for mining and metallurgy in Saxony . 1904, p. A56-A96 ( PDF ).
- Karl Löwe: Investigations into the possibility of processing the ores from St. Christoph treasure trove in Breitenbrunn in the Saxon Ore Mountains . In: Yearbook for mining and metallurgy in Saxony . 1929, p. A37-A54 ( PDF ).
- Bernd Lahl , Jens Kugler : Everything comes from the mine . The big book about mining in the Ore Mountains. Ed .: Matthias Zwarg. 3. Edition. Chemnitzer Verlag, Chemnitz 2006, ISBN 3-937025-13-8 , p. 137-138 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Johann Traugott Lindner : Walks through the most interesting areas of the Saxon Upper Ore Mountains . Rudolph and Dieterici, Annaberg 1848, ( p. 37 )
- ^ Matthias Günther: Archives in Saxony - inventory overview. Retrieved July 24, 2018 .
Web links
- Visitor mine St. Christoph. Retrieved February 19, 2012 .