Yesterday we drove to Goslar, a small town in the Harz, which is a mountain range in central Germany, and today we visited the Rammelsberg Mine, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. What's special: the ore contains about 30% metals. That's (according to the guide) the highest percentage worldwide. We took three guided tours there, which were:
Fire and Water: The Roeder Gallery,
From Ore Lump to Concentrate: The Ore Dressing Plant and
Mining in the 20th Century: With the Mine Train on Site. My favourite tour was the second one:
From Ore Lump to Concentrate: The Ore Dressing Plant, where we were shown the individual process of breaking down the ore, and finally extracting the minerals, as soon as it came out of the mine. First we were shown how the mining cart was emptied then how the ore was broken from football-size to fist-size, from fist-size to nut-size, and finally from nut-size to a watery mass. This watery mass then went through a series of machines to extract the minerals, and then the process was finished. After the tours, we checked out a minerals exhibition, and an exhibition of seemingly 3D paintings that depicted different mining scenes.
 |
| Wow! 1020 years of action! |
 |
| Chalcopyrite |
 |
| Slate |
 |
| Pyrite tuber |
 |
Banding ore
|
 |
| Mixed ore |
 |
| Carbonate-concretion |
 |
| Gypsum crystals |
 |
| Chalcanthite |
 |
| Zinc vitriol |
 |
| An old scene: manually carving the rock. |
 |
| Boom! |
 |
| Caution! Radioactive material! |
 |
| Sieving gold in the old America. |
 |
| Still mining, but above ground. |
 |
| At the end of the day: a hot shower, and then nothing but home! |
No comments:
Post a Comment