Kaunisvaara is a village in northern Sweden, in

Pajala Municipality Pajala Municipality (; fi, Pajalan kunta) is a municipality in Norrbotten County in northern Sweden, bordering Finland. Its seat is located in the locality of Pajala. In 1884 Tärendö was detached from Pajala Municipality, forming a municipalit ...

, 100 km north of the Arctic Circle.

Mining

There are large

magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself. With th ...

( iron ore) deposits in this area;

Northland Resources Northland Resources S.A. also known as Northland is a publicly traded exploration and development mining company. It currently focuses on iron ore bearing properties located in the northern regions of Sweden and Finland. The company currently had ...

began constructing the first mine in December 2011. Ore production was expected to begin in 2012, with annual iron ore production reaching 12 million tonnes by 2014. Reserves are estimated at 176 million tonnes. The mine went bankrupt in October 2014 because of low iron ore prices and high debts.

History

In 2009, archaeologists commissioned by Northland Resources found evidence of stone-age settlements, dated to 9300BCE, in the area; this has shed new light on the timeline of deglaciation and human settlement in northern

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

References

{{authority control Iron mines in Sweden Populated places in Pajala Municipality Norrbotten