Altaussee salt mine

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Altaussee salt mine
General information about the mine
Knappenhaus Altaussee.JPG
Miner's house of the salt mine
Funding / year 450,000 t
Information about the mining company
Operating company Salinen Austria AG
Employees 57
Start of operation 1147
Funded raw materials
Degradation of Rock salt
Rock salt

Stock name

Altaussee
Raw material content 75%
Geographical location
Coordinates 47 ° 39 '5 "  N , 13 ° 44' 21"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 39 '5 "  N , 13 ° 44' 21"  E
Altaussee Salt Mine (Styria)
Altaussee salt mine
Location Altaussee salt mine
Location Mountain Sandling
local community Altaussee
( NUTS3 ) Liezen, district
state Styria
Country Austria

The Altaussee salt mine [ ˈaltˌaʊseː ] is an Austrian salt mine in Sandling near Altaussee in the Salzkammergut . The largest salt production facility in Austria is operated by Salinen Austria AG .

history

middle Ages

Salt mining on the Sandling massif may be very old, but there is no evidence of a Bronze Age salt mine in Hallstatt . In the Roman-era settlement on Michlhallberg from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD, discovered on the southern slope of the Sandling in the 1990s , a connection with salt mining could not be proven, but is quite possible due to finds of heavy tools for stone processing. The Michlhall salt mine could have been (re) put into operation as early as 600; it may be documented again in 777. The saltworks was in 1147 in a deed of donation by Margrave Ottokar III. from the Traungau family for the first time explicitly mentioned in a document, which in any case ensures a high medieval business in the middle of the 12th century. At that time there were “two salt pans on the maple”.

Originally only the openly exposed brine springs were used, which were successively dug up. The first, not very productive place was probably east of the Dietrichkogel directly above Altaussee and only later moved to the actual Ahornberg to the northwest. The underground mining probably begins with the attack of the Moosberg tunnel in 1209. The mining at today's location, the Steinberg tunnel, was opened in 1319 at today's Steinberg above Moos, at the foot of the Presslwieskogel. This is where the most abundant deposits are located, which are still being exploited today. But only brine was extracted underground. Initially, the salt was produced in salt pans right at the foot of the mountain . In 1211, due to a lack of wood, the brewhouses moved from the Augstbach north of the village to Unterlupitsch southwest. From the late 13th century (around 1285), brine pipes were directed to the new Bad Aussee saltworks in Unterkainisch . For a long time, the yield was around 10,000 tons per year.

At first the Cistercian monastery Rein operated the dismantling , in 1211 the Babenbergs replaced them . The mine came under Salzburg control in the 13th century, and Pflindsberg Castle was built by Bishop Philipp von Spanheim in the 1250s. In 1282 ownership came to the Habsburgs , the conflict over monopoly escalated from 1291–92 over Ischl (salt war). From 1334 the plant was operated under the leadership of the private Hallinger trade union , the heyday of the medieval Aussee salt industry. 1449 nationalized Emperor Friedrich III. but salt mining again, and from the early modern period they belonged to the imperial Salinenärar (salt chamber ), which is why the expression Styrian Salzkammergut was coined. Even after the end of the Habsburg monarchy, the company remained state-owned.

Modern

In 1906 a brine line was laid from Altaussee via the Blaa-Alm and Bad Ischl to the Solvay -Werken, a chemical company in Ebensee.

Towards the end of the Second World War, a large depot for cultural goods was set up in the disused workers of the salt mine, partly for art treasures from Austrian churches, monasteries and museums, but then also Nazi-looted art , in particular Hitler's "private" collection for the planned Führer Museum in Linz.

Towards the end of the war the depot contained many thousands of paintings, statues, furniture, weapons, coins and libraries; estimated at about $ 3.5 billion at the time. At the end of the war, the saltworks management and local miners prevented the destruction of the art treasures and the destruction of the mine, shortly before Altaussee was occupied by US troops on May 8, 1945. The final evacuation lasted until 1948.

In 1949 the Erbstollen was opened . The brine has been extracted using the borehole probe method since 1965 .

Since the Bad Ausseer Saline was shut down in 1983, the brine extracted has been flowing to the Ebensee Saline , where today all of the salt from the Altaussee, Hallstatt and Bad Ischl mining areas is boiled. In 1997, today's Salinen Austria was privatized.

The show mine

The extraction of brine began in 1319 on today's brine horizon, which is open to the public during visits. The Eustach-Harrischwehr could already be visited before the First World War . In 1929 a show mine with two museum rooms was built and in 1935 the visitor route was expanded to include the “Barbara Chapel” made of raw, translucent rock salt . There is a Gothic figure of Barbara in the chapel . After the war , the mine was reopened in 1946. Today's visitor route was opened in 1952. In 2005 the museum was restructured; since then it has been marketed as Altaussee Salt Mine . The show mine is open every summer.

There is also a circular hiking trail as a montanist theme trail , called Via Salis , which connects the mining areas around Altaussee.

geology

The deposit belongs to the Hasel Mountains at the base of the Limestone Alps , to which the Hallstatt and Ischler deposits also belong, as well as the gypsum at Lake Grundlsee (Rigips) .

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

Salt mining today

The salt production takes place almost exclusively on Sinkwerke in wet mining . With an annual production of 450,000 tons of salt (as of 2008) , the Altaussee salt mine is the largest salt production site in Austria today.

Technical specifications

  • Total distance kilometers: 66.99 km
  • Distance kilometers walkable: 24.25 km
  • Total horizons ("floors"): 18
  • Horizons accessible: 11
  • Horizons in active dismantling: 4
  • Salinity (Hasel Mountains): average 75%
  • Salt content (brine): about 29%
  • Employees in mining: around 57
  • Brine production / year: 1.7 million m 3

literature

  • 800 years of Altaussee salt mine. Austrian State Printing Office, Vienna 1949.
  • 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]).

Web links

Commons : Salzbergwerk Altaussee  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Art warehouse in the "Mountain of Treasures". Retrieved July 22, 2012 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Salzwelten Altaussee: Mine: Technical information. Retrieved July 23, 2012 .
  3. ↑ a b c Othmar Schauberger: The alpine salt deposits . In: Geol. Federal Institute (Hrsg.): Yearbook of the Federal Geological Institute . Born 1978, No. 3 . Vienna December 1979, p. 455–459 ( PDF on ZOBODAT [accessed January 17, 2016]).
  4. ↑ Gerald Grabherr u. a .: Michlhallberg. The excavations in the Roman settlement 1997–1999 and the investigation of the associated road route (=  series of publications of the Kammerhof Museum Bad Aussee . Volume 22 ). Association of Friends of the Kammerhof Museum, Bad Aussee 2001, p. 103 .
  5. ↑ Duke Tassilo gives the Kremsmünster monastery “ unum hominem salem coquentem ex salina vero majori ”, “a salt boiler from the great saltworks”. Aigner already pointed out that michel is an old word for 'big', i.e. the Ausseer, not the Hallstatt mining industry. Hallstatt was probably not put into operation again until the 13th century (dated 1311): August Aigner: The prehistoric salt mountain of Hallstatt and its cultural significance for the Alpine peoples. Lecture from November 16, 1901. In: Mitteilungen des Naturwissenschaftlichen Verein für Steiermark 38 (1902), pp. 193–217, PDF on ZOBODAT pp. 215f. or in PDF p. 23f.
  6. ↑ Hans Hanke: Salzbergbau im Toten Gebirge In: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Alpenverein Volume 92 (1967), p. 40 (whole article p. 39-42; whole booklet, pdf , dav-bibliothek.de; there p. 46).
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Bombs, heroes and treasures - the history of the Altaussee salt mine.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.salzwelten.at   Section At a glance: the historical key data of salt mining in Altaussee. salzwelten.at (accessed April 2, 2018).
  8. ↑ “ duas salis patellas in Enstal apud Mahorn. ”Information in J. Zahn ( arrangement ): Document book of the Duchy of Styria: 798–1192 , Volume 1, Verlag des Historischen Verein für Steiermark, 1875, No. 261, p. 271 f ( digitized version , Google, complete view ).
  9. ↑ Josef Khälß: On historical ground. In: Woadsack No. 72, August 27, 2014 ( whole issue pdf , woadsack.at; article online ).
  10. ↑ a b c Gerald Stiptschitsch: Ausseerland: On the way of the salt tunnels. on Reisen-magazin.at, October 15, 2014.
  11. ^ Aeiou, Austria Lexicon: Salt . Retrieved July 17, 2012 .
  12. ↑ Via Salis. Salzkammergut website (ausseerland.salzkammergut.at, accessed April 2, 2018).