Bergrum Boliden

Boliden Mining Museum

Useful Information

Location:	Finnforsvägen 4, 93632 Boliden. Boliden, 30 km southwest Skellefteå. (64.874342, 20.382894)
Open:	closed. [2022]
Fee:	closed. [2022]
Classification:	Mining Museum
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:	Ar=300 m².
Guided tours:	self guided
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	yes
Bibliography:	E. Grip, Å. Wirstam (1970): The Boliden sulphide deposit. A review of geo-investigations carried out during the lifetime of the Boliden Mine, Sweden. Swedish Geol. Survey (SGU) Ser C no 651 (1970). Patrick Mercier-Langevin, Vicky McNicoll, Rodney L. Allen, James H. S. Blight, Benoît Dubé (2012): The Boliden gold-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit, Skellefte district, Sweden: new U–Pb age constraints and implications at deposit and district scale Mineralium Deposita volume 48, pages 485–504 (2013) DOI pdf
Address:	Bergrum Boliden, 930 10 Lövånger, Tel: +46-910-60060. Bergrum Boliden, Box 146, 93122 Skellefteå, Tel: +46-910-580060, Fax: +46-910-580074. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1924	beginning of ore mining.
1967	mine closed.
2012	museum closed.

Geology

The Boliden deposit was formed between ca. 1894 and 1891 Ma, in other words almost 1.9 Billion years old. It is a masssive deposit of sulfur based polymetallic ores containing Zn–Pb–Cu–Au–Ag. The deposit was formed by volcanism and later metamorphised.

Description

Unfortunately the museum was closed and dismantled. The house again houses offices and conference rooms for the company.

The Bergrum Boliden (Boliden Mining Museum) has a famous name: Boliden Mineral AB is today a huge multinational mining corporation. It was once founded in the small mining town Boliden, managed the mine, and was named after the town. The mining industry in the Skellefteå region developed since 1924 when the first gold was discovered. Today the polymetallic ores of the Skellefteå field and other mines is transported to Rönnskärsverken in Skelleftehamn. It is processed into various metals, mainly copper and lead. The ores from Boliden also have a small but valuable gold amount.

The mining museum explains the development of the planet earth and how the rocks and especially the ores developed. This is the global perspective on the ore, but the local perspective, the human perspective, tells about the mining of the ores. There is an exhibition on the 1920s gold rush and in the cellars are workshops with equipment for stone-polishing. A multimedia tour of Sweden's only gold mine at Boliden is also possible.

The 300m² exhibition is completed by a reference library, a café, and a museum show. There is no underground mine tour and no replica mine, but a room which simulates an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 on the Richter scale, which is pretty cool. The museum is located inside a historic mining building of the Boliden company, right beneath the current headquarters of the company.