Iron Ore Exports of Sweden.
Mill. tons.
Swedish, iron ore mines are, as a rule, not very deep, only 7 mines have
the mining operations carried down to a depth of 300 m and over, and
only in one of them to a depth of 500 m. In none of these places the ore
has been different in composition from that at higher levels, nor has as a
rule been found that the dimensions of the ore deposit have decreased in
the depth. On the other hand, a number of minor deposits have pinched
out at comparatively small depths.
In a number of deposits, particularly in Lappland, diamond drillholes
have been sunk in order to investigate the depth of the deposit. Thus at
Kirunavara ore of considerable thickness has been shown for instance at
a depth of 540 meters below the foot of the mountain or 300 meters below
the level of Lake Luossajarvi situated at the foot of the mountain, and
at Gallivare it has been ascertained, even by diamond boring, that both the
“ Tingvallskulle” ore and the “Fredrika” ore have the same thickness at a
depth of 240 meters as in the outcrop.
A computation of the supplies of ore in Sweden was made, for the account
of the International Geological Congress at Stockholm in 1910 by
the Geological Survey of Sweden as regards Central Sweden, and by Hj-
Lundbohm and iWalfr. Petersson as regards Lappland.
This investigation has yielded the results, given in Table 43.
Because the high percentage of iron in the Swedish ores alluded to
above, these supplies of ore have been estimated to correspond to 845
million tons of iron, of which 750 million tons fall to the ore fields of
Lappland.
Tons . Annually . Tons .Annually
235 000 1876—80 . ; . . 796 712’ 1 1906—10 . . . .
270 000 1881—85 . . . .877 408
349 000 1886—90 . . 1 . 932 470 1911 . . . . . .
464 363 1891 95 1519 325 1912....................
553 759 1896—00 . . . . 2 294 760 1913 . . . . . .
795 263 1901—05 . . , .3 564046
Tons
Output and Export of Iron Ore.
The annual amount of iron ore mined in Sweden during the last
decades figures put as follows:
Annually
1833—40
1841-50
1851—60
1861-65
1866-70
1871-75
The output of ore in Sweden for 1912 was 6 699 226 tons. A s the total
output for the world in the same year may be computed at 157 million
tons, it follows that Sweden’s contribution was about 4-3 %.
Table 44 gives a conspeotus of the relative share taken by the different
provinces in the output since the beginning of the nineties of the last century.
Thus, out of, the ore at present mined in Sweden about 65 % fall to the
Norrbotten mining fields and about 35 % to the mining districts of Central
Sweden, out of these 35 % about 19 % proceed from Kopparberg lan, 7'b % from
Örebro lan and 4'6 % from Vastmanland lan.
Over 69 % of all the prime ore produced in the course of the year 1913
exhibited an iron-content of between 60 and 70 %; the bulk of it was produced
in the big ore fields in the lan of Norrbotten and at Grangesberg in Kopparberg
lan. Further 82’9 of the annual output contained at least On % of phosphorus,
the bulk of which came from Norrbotten lan and Grangesberg, whereas
the ores _of Central Sweden were mostly poor in phosphorus, having a phos-
T able 44. Relative Shares of the Provinces in the Output o f Iron Ore.
L ä n
Percentage of Output in the whole of Sweden, annually
1891—
1895
1896—
1900 .
1901^1
1905
1906—
1910 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913
Stockholm . . 1-39 0-95 1-23 0-97 l-oo 1-09 1-09 0-81 0-75 0-70 0-62
Uppsala . . . . 4-44 2-55 1-74 119 1-23 1-23 1-29 1-07 0-96 0.95 0 83
Södermanland 1-58 0-96 0-70 0-62 0-73 0-60 0-65 0-49 0-54 0-53 0 62
Ostergötland . 0-20 0-07 005 007 0-1.1 0-07 0-08 002 — 0-01 0-05
Jönköping . . 006
Malmöhus . . 018
Värmland . . 5‘63 342 2'35 1-65 1-71 1-67 1-81 1-30 1-31 1-09 0'81
Örebro . . . . 1918 12-98 9-16 825 8-06 8-89 8-38 810 7-31 8'23 7-47
Västmanland . 12-40 8-61 6-34 4-91 499 4-83 5-18 4-73 4-72 5-23 4-62
Kopparberg. . 31-09 34-26 25'85 21-36 22-70 21-37 20-17 19-95 19-16 19-24 18-76
Gävleborg . . 0-68 0-40 0-41 0-27 0-37 0-24 015 0-23 0-26 0 33 0-31
Västernorrland Éíjá — 9 H! 0-01 1 H — IH » 0-02 — — —
Västerbotten . — . — - — 0-02 - BBS — — —
Norrbotten . . 23*35 35-80 52-17 60*70 59-10 59-99 61-20 63-28 64'99 63-69 65-73
Total 100oo| lOO-oo lOO-oo 10O-00 1OO-00 100 00 100-00 ioo-oo|ioo-oo 100 oo|l00 00