Historie a možnosti další těžby nerostů v Krušných horách

Abstract

In the present work, the historical and current aspects of mining of mineral resources in the Ore Mountains as well as detailed overview of individual ore deposits and non-metallic materials in this region and the possibility of future mining are reviewed. The Ore Mountains have always belonged to the leaders in mining of the ore materials and historically documented exploitation of the primary ore deposits can be back to the 12th century. Owing to abundant deposits of ore materials, mining techniques used in the Ore Mountains were always playing worldwide a dominant role in the development of mining techniques. A wide spectrum of available metals in several important ore mining districts of the Ore Mountains supported demographic and economic growth of the whole region which was, however, slowed down in 18th to 19th century, being a consequence of exhausting of nearly all available ore deposits. The following re-orientation to non-metallic deposits (brown coal, in particular) has promoted a new impetus and potential for development of mining techniques focused to the bulk quarry stoping. In conjuction with the exploitation of ore deposits or with the fact that mining in many locatilites has been suspended facing a present-day non-profitability, possibilites of the future recovery of these latter deposits are discussed.