Løkken Verk (or simply ''Løkken'')
is a village in
Orkland Municipality
Orkland is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Orkdalen. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Orkang ...
in
Trøndelag
Trøndelag (; or is a county and coextensive with the Trøndelag region (also known as ''Midt-Norge'' or ''Midt-Noreg,'' "Mid-Norway") in the central part of Norway. It was created in 1687, then named Trondhjem County (); in 1804 the county was ...
county,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
. It is located south of the village of
Svorkmo
Svorkmo is a village in Orkland Municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is situated in the Orkdalen valley along the river Orkla about west-southwest of the city of Trondheim. Svorkmo is located about south of the village of Vormstad a ...
, east of the village of
Bjørnli, and north of the municipal center of
Meldal.
The village has a population (2024) of 1,293 and a
population density
Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...
of .
History
Løkken Verk was originally populated when the
Løkken Mine
The Løkken Mine is an underground pyrite mine located in the present-day Orkland Municipality in Trøndelag, Norway. The mine was operative from 1654 to 1987, located in the mining community Løkken Verk. It contained the largest deposits of its ...
started
mining
Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...
for
copper
Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...
in 1654. The name comes from a farm at the place. The ore findings at Løkken Verk were originally about , and was the largest resource of
copper sulfide in Norway. There was mining at Løkken from 1654 until 1987. Prior to 1845, the target was copper that was
smelted, but in 1851 the mine transferred into mining
pyrites that were exported, primarily as raw material for
sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen, ...
. From 1931 until 1962,
sulfur
Sulfur ( American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphur ( Commonwealth spelling) is a chemical element; it has symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms ...
and
copper
Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...
were produced at
Orkla Metal in
Thamshavn. The history of the mining is preserved at
Orkla Industrial Museum at Løkken Verk.
In 1904, the mining operation was taken over by
Christian Thams and
Orkla Grube-Aktiebolag
Orkla Mining Company Ltd. () was a Norwegian mining company established in 1904. The company was the largest mining company in Norway in the aftermath of World War I, and was among the world's largest pyrite producers. After closing of the mining ...
, this group has evolved into the
Forbes 500
The ''Forbes'' 500 was an annual listing of the top 500 American companies produced by ''Forbes'' magazine. The list was calculated by combining five factors: sales, profits, assets, market value, and employees. The list was last issued in Marc ...
-company
Orkla Group. At the same time, the
Thamshavnbanen railway was built between Løkken Verk and
Thamshavn (just north of
Orkanger) to transport the pyrites to the port.
References
External links
Orkla Industrial MuseumLokken Verk
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lokken Verk
Villages in Trøndelag
Orkland