Arsenopyrite

specimen number:
2262320

location:
Sulitjelma Mine, Elsjo, Nannestad, Akershus, Norway

description:
A set of four loose floater crystals of arsenopyrite. All are in good condition. The size provided is the size of the box.

The Sulitjelma mining district, located in Fauske Municipality within Nordland County, Norway, was a highly productive and long-operating copper and sulfur enterprise. Geologically, the deposit represents a classic volcanogenic massive sulfide system hosted within the Caledonian orogenic belt, where Cambrian to Ordovician-age metamorphosed volcanic and sedimentary rocks enclose extensive stratiform lenses of massive ore. Hydrothermal venting on the ancient seafloor concentrated massive layers of pyrite, chalcopyrite, and sphalerite, along with lesser amounts of pyrrhotite, galena, and distinct trace telluride minerals within chlorite and quartz schists. Historically, the outcropping copper ore was first identified in 1858 by a local Sami man named Mons Petter, but large-scale industrial exploitation did not begin until 1887 under the direction of Swedish industrialist Nils Persson, leading to the formation of the Sulitjelma Aktiebolag. The operation rapidly expanded into an immense underground network of interconnected shaft mines and automated processing mills, producing significant portions of the domestic copper and pyrite exports for Norway. Following over a century of continuous, mechanized corporate mining, the depletion of economic ore bodies and high production costs led to the formal and permanent cessation of all commercial extraction at the Sulitjelma property in 1991.

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