A Geologist in Siberia: the Norilsk Nickel Mine
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Laval University From the SelectedWorks of Fathi Habashi April, 2016 A Geologist in Siberia: The orN ilsk Nickel Mine Fathi Habashi Available at: https://works.bepress.com/fathi_habashi/540/ A Geologist in Siberia. The Norilsk Nickel Mine. Fathi Habashi Siberia (Figure 1) is an extensive region constituted of almost all of the northern part of Asia. The region has been dominated by the Russians since its conquest in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Ural Mountains separate European Russia from Asian Russia. As well, the Yenisei River divides Russia into eastern and western regions. The city of Krasnoyarsk, on the banks of the Yenisei, is the geographical center of Russia and the Capital of Siberia. Norilsk, in the Arctic Circle, can only be reached from Krasnoyarsk which is 1500 km to the north. Figure 1 - Map of Russia showing Norilsk in the north, Krasnoyarsk in the south on the Yenisi River, and the Tunguska Event The Trans-Siberian Railway (Figure 2) was built from 1891 to 1916 during the reign of Tsar Alexander III (Figure 3) and his son Tsar Nicholas II (Figure 4). It connects Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan for a distance of 9,289 km, the longest railway line in the world. There are connecting branch lines into Mongolia, China and North Korea. It has connected Moscow with Vladivostok since 1916. Figure 2 - Trans-Siberian Railway and a commemorative stamp 12 Figure 3 - Tsar Alexander III Figure 4 - Tsar Nicholas II Leonid Alekseyevich Kulik (1883-1942) was a Russian mineralogist who is noted for his research into meteorites. He was educated at the Imperial Forestry Institute in Saint Petersburg, and at the Kazan University. Following WWI he became an instructor, teaching mineralogy in Tomsk. In 1920 he was offered a job at the Mineralogical Museum in the city of St. Petersburg. In 1927, he led the first Soviet research expedition to investigate the Tunguska event. A huge meteorite was reported to have landed in that area, making it the largest impact event in recorded history, which had occurred on 30 June 1908. He made a reconnaissance trip to the region, and interviewed local witnesses. Kulik did not find any meteorite fragments from the impact, but a flattened forest with tree tops pointing outward. His photos (Figure 5) of the forest depicted the damage that a meteoritic explosion had inflicted on the surface of the Earth. He circled the region where the trees had been felled and became convinced that they were all turned with their roots to the center. A stamp commemorating the 50th anniversary of the event was issued by the Soviet authorities (Figure 6). A crater on the Moon is named after Kulik. Figure 5 - The Siberian explosion near the Tunguska River. Figure 6 - Leonid A. Kulik (1883-1942) and The flattened forest is now believed to have been the result commemoration of the 50th anniversary of of a comet which exploded in 1908 just before reaching the the Tunguska event. ground. 13 Norilsk is the center of a region where nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum, palladium and coal are mined. Mineral deposits in the Siberian Craton had been known for two centuries before Norilsk was founded, but mining began only in 1939, when the buried portions of the Norilsk-Talnakh intrusions were found beneath mountainous terrain. Talnakh is the major mine/enrichment site now from which an enriched ore emulsion is pumped to Norilsk metallurgy plants. To support the new city, a railway to the port of Dudinka on the Yenisei 27 River was established, first as a narrow-gauge line (winter 1935–36), later as 1.520 m (4 ft 11 ⁄32 in) Russian standard gauge line (completed in the early 1950s). From Dudinka, enriched nickel and copper are transported to Murmansk by sea and, then, to the Monchegorsk enrichment and smelting plant on the Kola Peninsula. More precious content goes up the river to Krasnoyarsk. This transportation only takes place during the summer. The port of Dudinka is closed and dismantled during spring's ice barrier floods of up to 20 meters (66 ft) in late May (a typical spring occurrence on all Siberian rivers). In the early 1950s, another railway was under construction from the European coal city Vorkuta via the Salekhard/Ob River, and Norilsk had a spacious railway station built in the expectation of train service to Moscow, but construction stopped after Joseph Stalin died. According to the archives of Norillag, 16,806 prisoners died in Norilsk under the conditions of forced labor, starvation and intense cold during the existence of the camp (1935–1956). Fatalities were especially high during the war years of 1942–1944 when food supplies were very scarce. Prisoners organized the nonviolent Norilsk uprising in 1953. Significant numbers of prisoners continued to serve and die in the mines until around 1979. Norilsk-Talknakh continues to be a dangerous mine to work in. According to the mining company, there were 2.4 accidents per thousand workers in 2005. Since the early 2000s efforts are being made to rebuild and reshape the city's image. Many buildings are being renovated. Copper deposits were known to exist in the Norilsk area as early as the 1660s by early explorers. The geological study of the area began in the early 1920s. The town was founded in the 1930s during the reign of Stalin. Now it is a city of two hundred thousand residents. It is about 1550 km away from Krasnoyarsk. The first large expedition was dispatched in 1930. The Norilsk region contains more than a third of the world’s nickel reserves, and 40% of the world’s reserves of platinum as well as significant amounts of cobalt and copper. It produces 40% of the world’s palladium. Natural conditions were favourable for the mining and processing of Norilsk ores because large deposits of rich coal were located in the region. Russia recently issued a commemorative stamp to mark the 80th anniversary of the exploitation of nickel (Figure 7). Figure 7 - Stamp issued in 2015 commemorating 80 years of recovering nickel from the Norilsk mines. 14 Norilsk has long winters, violent snowstorms, and is remote from all means of transport. In winter the temperature drops to minus 45oC, and Norilsk is without sun for months at a time. Construction, which was carried out under conditions of permafrost, required new technologies. Norilsk metallurgical operations are quite varied, complicated, and highly polluting (Figure 8). Sulfur dioxide emissions are abundant causing extensive pollution and corrosion of equipment. The tallest chimney is 250 m high. Figure 8 - View of smelters in Norilsk Beneficiation plants are located at Talnakh 25 km north of Norilsk and the mines are nearby. Materials flow to and from all three plants as well as materials coming from Murmansk in Kola. Conventional flash smelting and electro refining of nickel are used. Cobalt is recovered from the electrolyte. Vanyukov furnaces, Peirce-Smith converters, and electro refining are used for copper. Anodic slimes from both plants and the platinum metals fraction are sent for processing in Krasnoyarsk at the Nonferrous Metals plant. The present task of Norilsk engineers is to collect SO2 , produced in the smelters, and reduce it using natural gas to elemental sulfur. Plans are underway to start this project. Between 1935 and 1953 the region was developed mainly through forced labor as about 300,000 prisoners constructed its facilities and then mined and processed its minerals. Norilsk was just one of many Soviet labour camps. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. GULAG is the Russian acronym for Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies. It was officially created on April 25, 1930 and dissolved on January 13, 1960. After the Perestroika it was possible to consult some of the secret archives and the Gulag system became officially known. As a result it was estimated that at least 500,000 pioneers and political dissidents who were brought from different parts of Russia perished in the camps during the construction of the mines and the smelters. In the past decade delegations from different communities came to Norilsk to build monuments to those heroes. Norilsk is not open to foreigners and special permission to visit is necessary. Reference F. Habashi, My Trips in Russia, 262 pages published by Métallurgie Extractive Québec, Quebec City, Canada 2015. Distributed by Laval University Bookstore “Zone”, www.zone.ul.ca. Available only as an e-Book. It is a part of the series De Re Metallica in 7 volumes available as paper edition from the same Bookstore 15 .