It all started about 500 million years ago when hot springs on the
ocean floor carried
copper, zinc and other metals to the ocean floor of the “proto
Atlantic Ocean”.
When the hot fluids cooled the metals precipitated from the fluid
forming piles of metals
around the vents. Today such hot spring vents are called “black
smokers” and the
“black smoke” is the metals actually precipitated from the hot
saline water.
(Take a look at a smoker in this film:
see a black smoker or
another black smoker)
Not long after the pile of metal was deposited on the ocean floor,
the “proto Atlantic Ocean”
closed…with Norway crashing violently into North America and
Greenland. Parts of the
ocean floor including the black smokers were shoved up onto land
creating a mountain
chain in what was called the Caledonian Orogeny.
About 500,001,748 years later, in 1748 royal mining rights at
Folldal were granted to Frederiks
Gaves Copper Co. for mining near this site and mining continued
sporadically until closure
in 1878. At that time the black smokers were of course cooled off,
but mining really
started to heat up in 1906 due to high copper prices. The old mine
was reopened with
English financial interests, with the name “Folldal Copper &
Sulpher Co Ltd.”
During this period electrical energy for mining and ore transport
was installed. Most
impressive was the aerial tramway that transported copper ore to
Alvdal to be loaded on
trains. The aerial tramway was 34 kilometers long and said to have
been Northern
Europe’s longest. On this tramway there were 820 ore buckets, and
each bucket could
carry 330 kg ore. The round trip for one bucket took 7 hours, and
around 300 tons of ore
could be transported per work shift.
Mining in Folldal was stopped in 1970, however, mining continued at
Hjerkinn until 1993.
The cache contains:
Log book & pencil
Diverse small trading things.
The cache should be available during winter...but this will be
monitored