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Mines/Sweden

Falun Mine (Stora Kopparberg)

Falun Mine (Stora Kopparberg), Sweden. Heritage site, underground, mining copper.

Why Falun Mine (Stora Kopparberg) is famous

World's largest copper producer in the 17th and 18th centuries, with up to 1,200 underground workers and Polhem's water-wheel lifting system. Legend dates mining to about AD 700. Production stopped in 1992.1,2,3

Story cards

What kind of deposit

Volcanogenic massive sulphide (Kuroko type)

Falun Mine (Stora Kopparberg) today

Where copper is mined todayMining in Sweden

Where next

Mines

An example ofGreat Orme MinesFalun's legend dates its mining to about AD 700. Great Orme's copper goes back to 1600 BC.1Same kind of depositKidd Mine (Kidd Creek)Falun's copper mine closed in 1992. Kidd, a mine of the same family, is called the world's deepest base metals mine.1ExamplesRoros Copper Works and minesRoros produced copper for 333 years. Falun was the world's largest copper producer.4

Places

Located inFalunFalun Mine (Stora Kopparberg) sits at Falun.1

Deposit types

An example ofVolcanogenic massive sulphide (Kuroko type)Falun Mine (Stora Kopparberg) belongs to the volcanogenic massive sulphide family of deposits.5

Sources

  1. Falun copper mine feature Christian Science Monitor
  2. Wikidata entity Q636194
  3. Wikidata item Q636194 (Falun Mine) Wikidata (CC0)
  4. Roros Mining Town and the Circumference Verdensarven.no
  5. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0. Pictures: Dolcoath tin mine, Camborne, Cornwall: miners in a mine shaft, standing on wooden platforms connected by ladders. Photograph by J. C. Burrow, 1890/1910., Burrow, J. C., 1852-1914 (Public Domain Mark 1.0).