Fürst Bismarck potash mine
| Fürst Bismarck potash mine | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| General information about the mine | |||
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| Information about the mining company | |||
| Operating company | Union key | ||
| Employees | to 230 | ||
| Start of operation | April 1896 | ||
| End of operation | March 1903 | ||
| Funded raw materials | |||
| Degradation of | Potash salt | ||
| Greatest depth | 1075 m | ||
| Geographical location | |||
| Coordinates | 52 ° 2 '20.8 " N , 10 ° 22' 38.1" E | ||
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| Location | On the griffin | ||
| local community | Salzgitter | ||
| Independent city ( NUTS3 ) | Salzgitter | ||
| country | State of Lower Saxony | ||
| Country | Germany | ||
| District | Peine-Salzgitter district; Northern Hanover Potash District | ||
The Kalisch Eight Prince Bismarck is a former pit in the district of today's Salzgitter-Bad . When, towards the end of the 19th century, abundant potash deposits were opened up in the vicinity , it was believed that they would also find something here and, from 1896, sank a shaft on the site of today's Greif Park in Salzgitter-Bad. At that time it was one of the deepest potash shafts in Germany. The work was stopped in 1903 due to unsuccessfulness, in 1907 the plant was demolished.
geology
In the urban area of today's Salzgitter-Bad there is a salt dome , which consists of layers of Zechstein salt and red salt. This is 4.5 km long and between 0.5 and 2.0 km wide. The salt level is now at a depth of 180 to 200 m. For centuries, the salt dome was the basis for saline salt extraction . Even today, the thermal brine bath in Salzgitter-Bad is supplied with brine from a 230 m deep borehole in the "Rosengarten" .
prehistory
In the second half of the 19th Century were after the discovery Kaliflözes Staßfurt created several potash mines in the area around the resin. The oldest was near Staßfurt , this was built between 1856 and 1861. It was followed by the potash plant near Vienenburg from 1884 to 1886. The Thiederhall potash plant was built between 1885 and 1891 in the area of today's Salzgitter .
The economic success of these potash plants also triggered mining activities in the area of today's Salzgitter-Bad. After all, salt springs had been known here since the 6th century and it was hoped to find minable potash deposits here too.
In January 1888, at the instigation of the Kniestedter farmer Dannenbaum am Hamberg, on the southern border of what was then Salzgitter zu Kniestedt , the first test well "Salzgitter 1" was sunk. The Essen-based drilling company Heberer und Nitsch was commissioned with the work. In 1890 it was announced that an 80 m thick potash deposit had been found at a depth of 400 m. According to the drilling reports, however, only rock salt finds were detected up to a depth of 460.30 m .
Thereafter, three further exploratory boreholes were drilled in the area of Kniestedt (now part of Salzgitter-Bad), but no potash was found.
1895 then the drilling contractor had villages report that one when he initiated the previous year bore "Salzgitter 2" m (near the present-day thermal Solbades) at depths from 524 to 903 was three times find anything this potash should widths of 21, 10 and 31 m. However, Dörfer did not provide any proof of the truth of this news.
Shaft construction from 1896
After the report about the success of the "Salzgitter 2" well, it was decided to sink a potash shaft. The starting point of the shaft was placed near the "Salzgitter 2" borehole. On April 17, 1896, "Auf dem Greif" began to sink the 5 m wide shaft. The work proceeded without major disruptions and in the same year reached the steep rock salt at 252 m. The shaft was secured with segments up to a depth of 175 m .
At the same time as the shaft was built, further test bores were made. First, in 1896, the “Salzgitter 3” well, which was set at a depth of 676 m. In the district gratings were 1897 about 400 m west of the shaft holes "grid I and II" drilled to the extent of the Kalisalzlagers in a westerly direction to explore . "I grid" is set at 801 m as you continue to not mineable Triassic salts met. The "Grid II" borehole was broken off at a depth of 1150 m because no one had found anything here either.
Although the test drillings had not produced any evidence of mineable potash deposits, the shaft was expanded further and extensive daytime facilities were built at the same time . These included a boiler and hoisting machine house , fan building, workshop building and a mill house. The wooden abbey tower was replaced by a steel structure in 1900. A siding was laid to the Salzgitter (-Bad) station, which connected the mine with the Braunschweig Southern Railway , which is important for freight traffic . In addition, four houses were built for the workers near the factory site (today at the corner of Bismarckstrasse and Hinter dem Salze). Only the construction of a chlorinated potassium factory was prohibited by the authorities, as they did not want to approve the discharge of the factory waste water into the nearby river Warne . In 1897 the key union received permission to name the plant after the Reich Chancellor "Potash Shaft Fürst Bismarck".
In September 1899 the shaft reached the final depth of 820 m. Up to this point, no mineable potash deposits had been opened up. Also outcrops on the 600 and 800 m sole had shown satisfactory results. Nevertheless, on October 28, 1899, Dörfer announced in the newspapers that the shaft had reached the potash store. At that time, the Schlüssel union employed 230 miners and workers.
In 1902, a blind shaft was built 420 m west of the shaft for further exploration , which was driven up to 1075 m. From here a further stretch to the west was driven , but here, too, nothing was found.
By 1903, around 1,300 m of shafts and dies had been sunk during the work . To this end, almost 3000 m of stretches were driven without encountering any minable potash deposits. The competent mining authority and an expert consulted now also took the view that further investments would be useless. When there was an ingress of lye on the 1075 m level on March 26, 1903, this was a reason to stop work and shut down the shaft. In the summer of 1907, the daytime facilities were blown up and the shaft filled . After the backfill column in the shaft tube sagged in November 1993, the shaft opening was closed with a concrete cover. Most of the siding was re - gauged in 1924 for the Calbecht - Vosspaß - Anna and Hope mine - Schroederstollen mine .
Economic development
After the successful announcement of the “Salzgitter 1” well, the “Salzgitter Kalibohrgesellschaft” was founded in 1890. The sale of shares in this company was slow at first - probably because the news about the potash discovery was increasingly classified as a rumor. On April 1, 1896, the Kalibohrgesellschaft was converted into the “ Union Keys” and 1000 Kuxe worth 200 Marks were issued - at a rate of 1000 Marks. With this, the key union had gathered the capital it needed to sink the shaft and began digging the shaft in the same month. The nominal values of the Kuxe of the key trades rose sharply at the beginning - at the end of 1897 their value was 3900 marks, at the end of 1899 even 4700 marks.
In October 1900 the Higher Regional Court of Braunschweig prohibited the key trade union from collecting further fines for formal reasons . At this point the value of the Kuxe had fallen to 300 marks. Since no further capital could be obtained from the union, it was converted into a "Aktiengesellschaft Kaliwerke Salzgitter" with a share capital of one million marks. This provided sufficient funds for further expansion of the potash shaft.
The total construction costs of the mine were put at seven million marks. With the cessation of operations in 1903 and the demolition of all facilities in 1907, the shareholders had lost their invested capital.
literature
- Rainer Slotta : The potash and rock salt industry . In: Technical monuments in the Federal Republic of Germany . tape 3 . German Mining Museum, Bochum 1980, ISBN 3-921533-16-3 , p. 703-708 .
- Ernst-Rüdiger Look: Geology, Mining and Prehistory in the Braunschweiger Land (= Geological Yearbook . Issue 88). Hanover 1985, p. 280 .
- Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Salzgitter - Past and Present of a German City - 1942-1992 . CH Beck, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-406-35573-0 , p. 566-568 .
- Heinrich Korthöber, Jörg Leuschner, Reinhard Försterling, Lux: Mining in Salzgitter. The history of mining and the life of miners from the beginning to the present . Ed .: Archive of the City of Salzgitter (= contributions to the city's history . Volume 13 ). Archive of the City of Salzgitter, Salzgitter 1997, ISBN 3-930292-05-X , p. 28-30 .
