Lugau-Oelsnitzer coal field

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The mining museum Oelsnitz / Erzgeb., The former "Karl-Liebknecht-Schacht" ("Kaiserin-Augusta-Schacht")

The Lugau-Oelsnitz hard coal mining area is a now exhausted hard coal mining area in southwest Saxony . It was the second largest hard coal mining area in Saxony and supplied around 140 million tons of hard coal between 1844 and 1971 . In some publications it is also combined with the neighboring Zwickau coal field to form the Zwickau-Oelsnitz coal field , but both differ both in geology and in historical development.

location

Panorama of the Oelsnitz-Lugau coal field with the locations of important former mines

The area is located between Zwickau and Chemnitz . It extends over around 25 km² on the corridors of the cities of Lugau , Oelsnitz / Erzgeb. , the municipalities of Niederwürschnitz and Hohndorf in the Erzgebirgskreis and the municipality of Gersdorf in the district of Zwickau . In the west it borders on the Zwickau district, but an approximately 3 km wide, empty zone separates the two districts.

In the northeast, the foothills of the Lugau-Oelsnitzer hard coal seam (more precisely that of the Lugau- Würschnitzer seam) extended to Mittelbach and Harthau . There were mining attempts in both places, but these were quickly stopped. The dismantling was obviously not cost-covering here. Please refer:

The so-called "Schachthaus" (Landgraben 8, Mittelbach), an early winding tower, was preserved in Mittelbach. Shafts were also sunk in Grüna near Chemnitz, including the persistence shaft on the Hexenberg. In Grüna, too, the mining attempts were soon stopped again.

geology

Upper seam zone Neuflöz 1
Neuflöz 2
Neuflöz 3
Upper seam
Lower seam zone Hope seam
Glückaufflöz
Trust seam
Main seam
Intermediate seam
Ground seam
Kneisel seam
Unnamed seam

The coal deposit is located in the western part of the Ore Mountains Basin . The hard coal deposits of Lugau-Oelsnitz and Zwickau were formed at the same time in Westfal D, a section of the Siles / Upper Karbon , in a basin on the edge of the Variscan orogen . It is a Limnic coal deposit , i.e. without marine influence. This basin was probably divided by an alluvial fan, so that development in the Zwickau and Lugau-Oelsnitz parts took place differently. The deposition consequences of both areas do not correlate with each other.

The layers of the Upper Carboniferous superimpose discordant Paleozoic phyllites of the Ore Mountains . In the Lugau-Oelsnitzer district they have a thickness of about 183 m with 12 bituminous coals . The predominant types of coal are pitch and black coal. Typical rocks for the carbon are slate and sandstones , which are rich in plant prints. The carbon stretches out in a narrow strip on the border between Niederwürschnitz and Lugau in the east of the area and falls in the north-west. On the western edge of the Revieres the deepest seams lie at about 1200 m depth . In the direction of Zwickau they “stone” and finally fail completely.

The carbon is covered by volcanic sedimentary layers of the Rotliegend , which is up to the surface and gives the soils in the region a typical red color. Due to the Variscan orogen, which is still active during and after the formation of the coal basin, the deposit is heavily tectonically stressed. There are several major faults , of which the NE-SW can jump heights of over 100 m.

Mining development

Before the coal was found, the area was used for agriculture. Lugau and Oelsnitz were small communities. In 1831 the first hard coal was found in the area where the carbon strata between Lugau, Neuoelsnitz and Niederwürschnitz were being struck, but the first attempts at mining were unsuccessful. In 1844, the Zwickau machine supervisor Karl Gottlob Wolf mined the first hard coal from a depth of 9 m. The site of the first mining is on Äußere Stollberger Straße near the border between Oelsnitz, district Neuoelsnitz, and Niederwürschnitz. This was followed by a rapid development of small businesses, especially farmers who looked for coal in their fields. However, these small businesses soon closed again, followed by larger companies that were able to develop their coal fields quickly with the appropriate technology.

The Blessing God shaft around 1900
Engine house of the former Kaisergrube (2012)

In 1856 the coal mining association "Gottes Segen" was founded, which in the same year sank the shaft of the same name in Lugau. In 1858 the area was connected to the railway network with the Neuoelsnitz – Wüstenbrand railway of the Chemnitz-Würschnitzer railway company in the direction of Chemnitz . The Stollberg – St. Egidien in the direction of Zwickau.

In 1867, the new mine of the Zwickau-Lugau coal-mining association in Lugau broke the shaft, killing 101 miners. The shaft was cleared up again and put back into operation under the name of trust shaft . Mining developed more slowly on the Oelsnitzer Flur due to the greater depth of the coal-bearing layers. The Oelsnitzer mining company with the Hedwig shaft , founded in 1856, was the only mining operator in the community for a long time.

The winding machine house of the Germany I shaft before it was converted into a residential and commercial building in 2007

Around 1870 there was a great boom with the establishment of many new mining companies in Oelsnitz, Hohndorf and Gersdorf with many new shafts . The Vereinsglück- and Germany shafts in Oelsnitz and the Kaisergrube in Gersdorf were important. After mergers and closures , only three companies were left in 1921: the union of God's blessing , the union Germany and the Gersdorfer coal Building Association . In the 1920s, after extensive modernization, mining was concentrated on a few shafts. For the union of God's blessing was Empress Augusta Bay in Neuoelsnitz expanded to the central system and the union Germany built the two Germany-ducts to its central system. The other shafts of the area were either thrown out or served as secondary shafts for weather control , material transport or for cable travel. After the mine field was exhausted, the Gersdorfer Steinkohlenbauverein stopped mining in 1944.

After the Second World War , mining was reorganized as a result of the socialist economic policy in the Soviet occupation zone and the subsequent GDR . After a brief merger, the two large mining companies continued to exist in the form of VEB Steinkohlenwerk Karl Liebknecht and VEB Steinkohlenwerk Deutschland . In 1960 the two mining companies became the VEB Steinkohlenwerk Oelsnitz / Erzgeb. merged. In 1971 the mining of hard coal in the area was stopped. Underground decommissioning work was carried out by 1975 and the last shafts were filled.

Follow-up use of the area

The Malakow tower of Concordiaschacht II in Oelsnitz, used as a residential building
"Schachthaus" (shaft tower , mining 1860–1863) in Mittelbach , used as a residential
building , with a heap around it

In order to compensate for the loss of jobs in the mining industry, several companies were established in the area. A booking machine plant for Robotron was built on the site of the "Karl Liebknecht Shaft" , as was a sintering plant that processed dump material into building material . A Textima textile factory was set up in Niederwürschnitz . Some mine buildings were also used as residential houses or for commercial purposes.

Part of the "Karl Liebknecht Shaft" was converted into the Oelsnitz / Erzgebirge mining museum , one of the largest technical museums in the former GDR. The 50 m high winding tower is a landmark in the former area and a landmark of the city of Oelsnitz that can be seen from afar .

German reunification initiated another major economic transformation. After the difficult years after the reunification of labor market policy, however, it was possible to locate high-performing companies that still benefit from the core competencies that were acquired in mining. The automobile and supplier industries as well as metal processing and microsystems technology are among the most important core industries in the former mining region. The most important representatives of the technology areas of mobility and machinery include Feintool System Parts Oelsnitz GmbH, a technology leader in the areas of fineblanking and forming, and FSG Automotive GmbH as part of the international Sodecia group with modular production of transmission assemblies for the automotive industry. Micas AG and several companies affiliated with it are suppliers of innovative and individual sensor and electronic products. In and around Oelsnitz / Erzgeb. Today more than 20,000 jobs, mostly industrial, contribute to economic growth.

Former mining dumps have been redesigned for recreational activities since they were closed and today contribute significantly to the high quality of life in the post-mining landscape . The Glückaufturm was built on the Germany shaft dump in 2000 and the Germany shaft dump was opened up for tourist use in the following years. Today it is a popular destination. Due to the continuously smoldering dump, the construction of the foundation for the 36 m high observation tower was an engineering masterpiece. The dump of the “God's Blessing Shaft” in Lugau is used as a motocross track, and runs for the German championship take place here. Between 2012 and 2015, the former Oelsnitz coal handling station, an industrial wasteland measuring almost 10 hectares, became the 7th Saxon State Horticultural Show in Oelsnitz / Erzgeb. Refurbished in 2015 and has been available to residents and their guests as a public park since spring 2016.

Mining consequences

The sculpture shows the level of the earth's surface before mining in the Waldesruh area (near Oelsnitz )

In Oelsnitz in particular, there was severe damage to buildings as a result of significant subsidence. The largest subsidence was in the Oelsnitz district of Waldesruh with up to 17 m. The subsidence is considered complete. The mine building, with a presumed residual void volume of 47 million m³, has not yet been completely flooded because, in contrast to Zwickau, the Oelsnitz district is relatively dry. In 2004 a 700 m deep borehole was sunk in Oelsnitz in order to obtain information about the water level in the pit and the condition of the mountains . Another mine water measuring station (GrWM) has been active at the Pluto shaft in Gersdorf since 2014. Regular measurements on the GrWMs have led to the following findings in particular:

  • The flooding of the area is likely to continue until around 2032 and then be completed.
  • In the western part of the district (Oelsnitz) in particular, an increasing mineralization of the water has been demonstrated, which is most certainly due to the inflow of saline deep water.
  • The different mineralization at both measuring points indicates that disturbances in the mine building prevent or complicate the exchange of water within the cavities.
  • From today's perspective, pumping stations as in other mining regions are unnecessary.

In addition to subsidence and rise in pit water, the removal of soil pollution , for example at the location of the coal grinding plant in Hohndorf, the site of which first had to be rehabilitated , played a role in subsequent use.

literature

  • Rolf Vogel : The Lugau – Oelsnitzer coal field . Ed .: Förderverein Bergbaumuseum Oelsnitz / Erzgeb. eV Hohenstein – Ernstthal 1992.
  • Ludwig Baumann, Ewald Kuschka, Thomas Seifert: Deposits of the Ore Mountains . Enke Verlag, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-13-118281-4
  • Rudolf Daber: Parallelization of the seams of the Zwickau and the Lugau-Oelsnitzer coal field on the basis of palaeobotanical investigations , Geology No. 19/1957 Akademie Verlag Berlin
  • Andreas Erb, Mona Harring: From the depths to the light . Mitteldeutscher Verlag 2006, ISBN 978-3-89812-403-4
  • H. Krug: The Lugau-Ölsnitzer coal field . in: Yearbook for the Mining and Metallurgy Industry of Saxony Born in 1920, Freiberg 1920, p. A3-A53 Digital version of the entire yearbook (pdf, 23 MB) , digital version of the maps, boards and profiles belonging to the article (pdf, 36.8 MB)
  • Helmut Müller: On the history of hard coal processing in the Lugau-Oelsnitzer district. Series of publications files and reports from the Saxon mining industry, Vol. 50, Kleinvoigtsberg 2008
  • Heino Neuber: The first large hard coal works in the Lugau-Oelsnitzer Revier: from the history of the Carl-Schachtes in Lugau . in: Erzgebirgische Heimatblätter Heft 5/2008, pp. 2–5
  • Saxon State Office for Environment, Agriculture and Geology (Ed.): Geology and mining consequences in the hard coal area Lugau / Oelsnitz . Geoprofil series vol. 13, Dresden 2010 ( digitized version )
  • Otfried Wagenbreth , Walter Steiner: Geological forays . Spektrum Akademischer Verlag 1990, ISBN 978-3-8274-1215-7

Web links

Commons : Lugau-Oelsnitzer Steinkohlenrevier  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. without author: "The district of Chemnitz in historical views", Geiger Verlag Horb am Neckar, 1992, ISBN 3-89264-730-5 chap. "Mittelbach": Lugau-Würschnitzer coal seam p. 136, Schachthaus Mittelbach older illustration p. 138