Gülşehir Salt Mine (), officially named "Turkey 2023", is an underground
salt mine
Salt mining extracts natural salt deposits from underground. The mined salt is usually in the form of halite (commonly known as rock salt), and extracted from evaporite formations.
History
Before the advent of the modern internal combustio ...
located at Tuzköy village in
Gülşehir
Gülşehir, formerly Aravissos and Arapsun, ancient Zoropassos (Ancient Greek: ''Ζωρόπασος''), is a town in Nevşehir Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey, in the vicinity of the Fairy Chimney valley of Göreme. It is the sea ...
district of
Nevşehir Province
Nevşehir Province () is a Provinces of Turkey, province in central Turkey with its capital in Nevşehir. Its area is 5,485 km2, and its population is 317,952 (2024). Its adjacent provinces are Kırşehir Province, Kırşehir to the northwest ...
, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey.
The salt mine is located in the "Hacı Bektaş Salt Basin" about far from
Nevşehir
Nevşehir (; from 'new' and 'city') is a city in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. It is the seat of Nevşehir Province and Nevşehir District.
It is reported that salt mining works have been carried out at site since the late
Seljuk Empire
The Seljuk Empire, or the Great Seljuk Empire, was a High Middle Ages, high medieval, culturally Turco-Persian tradition, Turco-Persian, Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim empire, established and ruled by the Qiniq (tribe), Qïnïq branch of Oghuz Turks. ...
era, around eight centuries ago. Currently, the salt mine is long situated at a depth of about . More than 50 people are employed in the mine. Salt rock is mined by a
tunnel boring machine
A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole" or a "worm", is a machine used to excavate tunnels. TBMs are an alternative to drilling and blasting methods and "hand mining", allowing more rapid excavation through hard rock, wet or dry so ...
and transported to the surface by trucks. The raw salt is processed in several refinement operations before it reaches a commercial quality. Annual production is 150,000 tonnes in average worth of 15 million (approx. US$ 2 million as of September 2020).
The salt rock reserves in the region stretch over an area of . The current operator Suat Bilgin told in an interview that he leased the salt mine in 2006 after a tender offer for a time period of 99 years.