History of mining activity in Altenberg

The Altenberg deposit is one of the most important tin deposits in Europe. Mining dates back to the 15th century. The mineral mined is cassiterite (SnO2). Thanks to its high density (6.8-7 g/cm3), it can be easily extracted gravitationally from the crushed ore. Fine crushing of the ore was initially carried out manually, later by means of wet punch mills and in modern times with various mills. Initially, slurry trenches were used for enrichment and later various chutes and hearths. From 1934, a wet mechanical flotation process was used, which reduced tin losses during the treatment process. After the political and economic changes in 1989-1990, mining activities in Altenberg had to be discontinued due to a lack of profitability. In the period from 1446 to 1991, 31.6 million tons of ore were extracted. The mining period from 1947 to 1991 was the most significant, with a total raw ore throughput of 20.6 million tons and a production of 38,694 tons of tin in concentrate (Weinhold, 2002). This corresponds to an extracted metal content of approx. 1.9 kg Sn/t ore. The rather high Sn content in the tailings of approx. 0.2 % shows that the recovery was less than 50 %.

• The final tailings disposal of the IAA took place under the management of the former GVV and now LMBV until 2014.
• Project recomine:,,Technologies for the Extraction and Processing of Lithium Mica from Flush Dumps in the Ore Mountains (TEVLiS) using the Example of the Industrial tailings pond (IAA) Bielatal”, 2022 – 2025. Project coordinator: Beak Consultants GmbH.

LMBV Unternehmenskommunikation, (2014): LMBV konkret, 19th year, issue 5, November 2014.