Finland’s Outokumpu Mine – The Mine –The Shaft – The Mill

Recently modernized, the surface plant of the Outokumpu mine in Finland incorporates a number of ideas meriting close scrutiny from this side of the Atlantic. The mining methods make extensive use of concrete in some unusual ways. Design of the headframe and surface plant represents the latest thinking of European engineers and includes an integral Koepe hoist. The deposit is in eastern Finland, province of North Karelia, 30 miles west northwest of Joensuu and at 60'44' N, latitude. Pyrrhotite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, and sphalerite mineralization occurs in a shear zone in quartzite near a body of serpentinite. Two lenses have a total length over 12.000 ft, with remaining reserves of the 3 to 4 pct Cu ore estimated at about 15 million metric tons.