Minerals of Finland. Industry and economy of Finland

This article will examine the minerals of Finland, their extraction, processing and role in the economy of the country. To start this topic will have to be from afar, from about three billion years ago, when these places were buried under a huge glacier. Mainly thanks to the events of that time Finland's mineral resources appeared in such quantity.

ice Age

It was during the glacial period that a huge crystalline granite shield formed, on which huge heavy ice strata pressed the earth's crust to such an extent that two large bodies of water appeared - the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic Sea, which were originally lakes. It was the glaciers that formed the relief of Finland. Ice thicker than three kilometers were able to bend the Earth itself. They also carried more than seven meters of rock from the surface.

The whole system of Finnish lakes and huge boulders brought in can tell a lot about how the relief of Finland turned out as we see it now. Three percent of the country's territory is absolutely open granites, and eleven percent - the same granite under the earth at a depth of not more than one meter. Due to the glacial period, Finland's mineral resources are a multitude of non-ferrous and rare-earth metals. The fact that in ancient times there was a glacier on this earth is felt absolutely throughout the whole country.

Finland today

The place where Finland is located is the north of Europe. The largest part of the country is located on the Scandinavian Peninsula. It borders on Norway, Russia, Sweden, on the sea - with Estonia. Its area is small - three hundred and thirty-eight thousand square kilometers. Here live about five and a half million people, a large part of which settled in the capital - Helsinki - and other smaller cities, and only thirty percent of the population - in other territories. The abundance of lakes, forests, marshes is a characteristic feature of that part of the planet where Finland is located.

No less geographical details are interesting in this area, flora and fauna. Bears and moose are not uncommon here, but the coat of arms of Finland has always depicted a lion not living in these places (although it is believed that in 1580 this king of animals was called a trot). Since Finland has spent most of its existence (about five hundred years) as a province of Sweden, it is the Swedish king Gustav I who owns this image. The coat of arms of Finland appeared then on his statue in the Gothic temple of Uppsala. For a short time Finland was part of Russia, and then this lion (or lynx) was depicted on a shield that was located on the breast of an imperial two-headed eagle.

Geography

The geography of Finland is quite unique: more than two thirds of its territory lies two hundred meters below sea level and has the appearance of hilly moraine plains with frequent occurrences of rocky rocks, lake basins and ridges of heights - Salpausselkya, Suomenelskya, Manselkä.

The north-west of the country is occupied by the Scandinavian mountains (their eastern extremity). The height of the mountains reaches 1365 meters in Finland - it is the mountain of Hultiatunturi. A little less than sixty thousand lakes, or eight percent of all territories, form large water systems. Rivers are not long here, but they are rapids and high water.

Geology

The geology of Finland is determined by its location on the Baltic Shield. The rocks here are Early Precambrian metamorphic, as well as granites, and all of them seem to be pinched by the haze of the glacial and glacial deposits of the Quaternary period. The retreat of the glacier is therefore evident in all their phases. The Gulf of Bothnia intersects the fault zone, which extends to Lake Ladoga itself, dividing the Precambrian period into two areas. To the east, the greenstone belts of the Archean times spread, sharply overlapping with clastic sediments and volcanic rocks of the Jatulia (early Proterozoic).

It is with them that ore deposits of noble metals are associated (and others are simpler): the ores are not only gold, but also uranium, iron, copper, nickel, polymetallic, vanadium and cobalt. In the west, there are calcareous alkaline volcanics, shales and greywackes up to two billion years old, which were formed by volcanic island arcs and marginal seas. They are in many places broken by the plutons of granitoids, where in a special place - the Central Phillyine batholith. There are many small deposits of polymetallic, copper, iron, nickel and rare-earth ores.

Research

In 1947, a scientific geological society was organized in Finland, reorganized into the Academy in 1970. It is the latter that deals with the geology and mining of the country. Curator is a special commission, which is part of the structure of the Academy, where members are scientists in the field of natural sciences. The council that deals with technological research also helps to solve the problems that arise, and one more council, studying the environment, must study all the questions.

In the universities of Finland, both mining and geology are studied, but these disciplines are taught in general (natural sciences) faculties with one exception. This is the technological university of Helsinki - a state university, founded in 1908. There is a separate faculty of metallurgy and mining. However, there are many universities in Finland where various disciplines are taught that are inextricably linked with mining and geology, despite the fact that these faculties are not separate, but general, and are devoted to the natural sciences.

Minerals of Finland

Chromium ore Finland is extremely rich. Also there are large reserves of zinc, cobalt, nickel, copper, apatite, vanadium and, of course, peat. Iron ore is mined in the north-west of the country. The Pakhtovar deposit contains ferruginous quartzites, in Kaimaryavi - apatite and magnetite, and Makkola, Khitura and Kotalahti give copper and nickel. Deposits of precious metal ores are developed in the south of Finland, in Kemi and northern Lapland. The deposits of Vammala, Outokumpu, Vihanti contain gold, silver and platinoids (the resource of the latter is insignificant).

Rare metals are mined in the southern and central zones, here the main deposits are Kangasala and Kemio, where the content of ores is characterized by the presence of ilmenite, phlogopite, magnetite, zircon, pyrochlore, badlite. The ore reserves of apatite, chromium, vanadium are quite significant, in Europe in the first place in terms of quantity, cobalt - on the second. There are also a lot of iron ores, zinc, copper, nickel. Peat and nonmetallic minerals are mined in Finland very widely. Peat deposits are very numerous and are located almost throughout the country, but in size, each of them is small. It is economically profitable to develop deposits that exceed twenty hectares, where the thickness of the seams should be more than two meters. In Finland, however, not all deposits are as follows.

Ore

Almost all deposits of uranium ore are in the Karelian quartzite-slate complex or on the borders with the Archean granite-gneiss complex. Of the significant deposits can be noted Kolari Paltamo, Paukainvare and Noutijarvi. Iron ores are located in the north-west and in the central part of Finland. Most often they are associated with Karelian orogenesis, its leptite formation.

Among the ores there are ferruginous quartzites (Pakhtovara), apatite and magnetite (Kaymayarvi and others), magnetite skarns (Oriyarvi and Tervola), ilmenite magnetite (in Otanmäki and other places). Skarn and magmatic deposits are developed in a complex manner. Vanadium and titanium in ores are at the eastern extremity of the Baltic Shield. These formations are associated with the Lower and Middle Proterozoic period. They are being developed in the fields of Mustavara and Otanmaki.

Polymetals

Chromium in the ore is concentrated in one deposit, which feeds all the relevant industry in Finland. This is Kemi - near the Gulf of Bothnia, on its northern shore. Cobalt, nickel, copper and the like non-ferrous metals in the ore lie in the Ladoga-Botnic belt, and two geological-industrial types of deposits have been identified. It is copper-nickel in the Kotalakhta subzone of the sulphide belt (Makkola, Khitura, Kotalahti and others), where the average copper content is 0.3%, and nickel is 1.2%.

The second type is the stratimorphic pyrite deposits associated with graphite black shales (Hammaslakti, Vuonos, Outokumpu and some others), where the silver content is 11 grams per ton of ore, gold is up to one gram, zinc is 7%, copper is 3, 5%, and there is also a bit of cobalt and nickel. Polymetallic ores are located in the southern deposits on the Baltic Shield, where, in addition to zinc and lead, contain gold, copper, silver and many other elements.

Industry of Finland

In the general characteristic of economic activity of the country, GDP already in 1986 amounted to 357 billion Finnish marks. It should be noted that this indicator is constantly and steadily growing. An interesting feature is that the extractive industry accounts for only a tenth of a percent of GDP, and that of manufacturing is more than twenty percent.

Despite the large enough reserves of minerals, the main natural wealth is the forest, which covers more than half of the country's entire territory. Accordingly, all the main branches of the Finnish economy are engaged in the development of these resources. Problems exist in Finland with energy carriers, although industrial development of solid and liquid fuel fields begins.

How it was

Mineral resources have been mastered in Finland since ancient times, even Finnish legends (runes) tell about iron ore. Although before the thirteenth century, apart from stone and iron, nothing was used. The mining industry did not develop in Finland during the Swedish rule, because even for exploration and especially for development it was necessary to have personal permission from the King of Sweden.

In the sixteenth century, iron ore began to be extracted, and cast iron was decided only in the eighteenth, and this was the production closer to the artisanal. In the nineteenth century, already part of Russia, the authorities began to encourage both exploration and extraction of mineral raw materials.

How it became

In 1812, the Russian Empire established the first Mining Department in its Finnish province to guide the exploration of minerals and their use. The first concession was awarded to the Kulonsuonmaki mine for the extraction of iron ore, and in 1829 such deposits were already included in the development of twelve. Thanks to incentive measures, about three thousand tons of iron ore were mined, and the growth of this industry continued. In addition to large state ones, there were still more than fifty small private mines, where the quality of ore was much inferior to the main ones.

Russia accepted iron and copper duty-free, so the increase in production by 1860 exceeded forty-eight thousand tons. Copper in Oriyarvi began to mine in 1832, and in 1870 polymetallic deposits in Pitkyaranta were already developed. By 1895, Finland produced 5,195 tons of copper, 425 tons of tin, almost eight tons of silver, and in Lapland, gold was washed to a maximum of fifty kilograms a year. They extracted granites, marbles, syenites, which were used not only in Finland: many buildings of St. Petersburg were faced with a Finnish stone. Today, all mining products in Finland cost more than one billion euros a year, which give almost fifty operating enterprises.