The Minden Coalfield (german: Mindener Revier) is located in the northern Wiehen foothills near the German town of

Minden Minden () is a middle-sized town in the very north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the greatest town between Bielefeld and Hanover. It is the capital of the district (''Kreis'') of Minden-Lübbecke, which is part of the region of Detm ...

. Here, seams of Wealden Coal (''Wealdenkohle'') reach the surface of the earth in the Schaumburg Basin (''Schaumburger Mulde''). During the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...

Swedish soldiers first discovered this black coal near Minden whilst preparing fieldworks on the Bölhorst. By 1663 it was forbidden to dig privately for coal and severe penalties were imposed for doing so. A series of shaft systems were sunk increasingly deeper into the earth. Coal continued to be mined until 1 August 1958, for example in the Barsinghausen coalfield (''Barsinghausener Revier'') east of Minden in the

Deister The Deister is a chain of hills in the German state of Lower Saxony, about 15 mi (25 km) southwest of the city of Hanover. It runs in a north-westerly direction from Springe in the south to Rodenberg in the north. The next in the chain ...

. The last mine in this coalfield was the Minden Coal Mine (''Kohlenbergwerk Minden'') in

Meißen Meissen (in German orthography: ''Meißen'', ) is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrechts ...

Geology

The Wealden near Minden divides into the thick Lower Wealden Shale (''Unterer Wealdenschieferton'') and the thick Upper Wealden Shale (''Oberer Wealdenschieferton''). The thick bed of Wealden Sandstone east of the Weser is almost completely absent here. Below the Lower Shale are layers of

Malm is the administrative centre of the municipality of Steinkjer in Trøndelag county, Norway. The village of Malm is located along the Breistadsundet strait which flows into the Trondheimsfjorden. The village of Bartnes lies across the strait fro ...

. The well-sealed shale results in the low water ingress from the hill range, but a high level of mine gas: of

firedamp Firedamp is any flammable gas found in coal mines, typically coalbed methane. It is particularly found in areas where the coal is bituminous. The gas accumulates in pockets in the coal and adjacent strata and when they are penetrated the releas ...

(CH₄) per ton of coal. The beds descend steadily at an incline of 20 - 22° towards the north. Two large faults were discovered in the course of coal mining: The Rösche Fault (''Rösche-Sprung'', ) and the Porta Fault (''Porta-Verwerfung'', ). In the Lower Wealden Shale there are two coal seams. The main seam is thick ( of impure coal, of tailings and of pure coal), below is the secondary seam with of solid coal. The main seam was abandoned in later years due to its lack of workability. The coal in the secondary seam has 22% volatile components and is categories as bituminous coal, low in gas. Its calorific value is 7,600 kcal/kg with a sulphur content of 8-9% as a result of

iron sulphide Iron sulfide or Iron sulphide can refer to range of chemical compounds composed of iron and sulfur. Minerals By increasing order of stability: * Iron(II) sulfide, FeS * Greigite, Fe3S4 (cubic) * Pyrrhotite, Fe1−xS (where x = 0 to 0.2) (monoclin ...

Sources

* Hans Röhrs: ''Erz und Kohle. Bergbau und Eisenhütten zwischen Ems und Weser''. Ibbenbürener Vereinsdruckerei (IVD), Ibbenbüren 1992, 263 pp., * Thomas Krassmann: 'Materialien zur Geologie und zum Bergbau des Schaumburger Landes'' 2010

External links

*
Thomas Krassmann: ''Materialien zur Geologie und zum Bergbau des Schaumburger Landes''
{{Coord, 52.265767, N, 8.879614, E, type:landmark_region:DE-NW, display=title, format=dms Industrial history of Germany Economy of North Rhine-Westphalia Minden-Lübbecke

Min Min or MIN may refer to: Places * Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China ** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian * Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China * Min River (Fujian) * Min River (Sichuan) * Mineola (Amtrak ...

History of mining in Germany