Mining Part One

Just by driving around the Iron Range, it was easy to tell that the earth was rich with iron.

The view from Soudan

The view from Soudan

Old Railroad for transporting ore

The ground was red, the rocks were red, even that lake water was red. My white shoes got partially dyed a rust color. The funny thing is that iron ore is actually a metallic blue, but its dust is red.

The water is red!

The  Soudan Iron Mine was the best source of iron in Minnesota from the time it opened in the late 1800s until it went out of operation in 1962. The ore mined there was hard and had a 62% iron percentage. That’s high enough that two rocks from the mine could be welded together. The hardness of the iron in Soudan also made the mine safer and less likely to cave in than the nearby soft iron mines. Soudan Mine is half a mile deep with 27 levels of mining shafts.

More red water

This does not mean the conditions at Soudan were all that great. When it first opened, there was no electricity, mules pulled the carts for transporting iron ore, and miners had to work in the pitch darkness by candlelight. Their bosses did not provide the candles. The miners had to pay for the candles out of their own pockets.

Lake Vermilion

There is still a lot of good quality iron left in Soudan, but it’s so deep in the earth that it’s too expensive to mine. While the mine was still in production, Soudan’s iron ore was shipped across Lake Superior to factories where it was used to produce a variety of products including weapons for both World Wars.

One of the people on our tour was a metallurgist who travels around teaching and inspecting mines for the company he works for. He told us that the iron used to make steel today is of a much poorer quality than the Soudan iron, but it’s cheaper.

Soudan hasn’t gone completely out of use. There are now tours for the public, and there is currently a physics laboratory deep in the mine that is working on subatomic research.

The ore. The blue is the iron

Bats and some mysterious microorganisms inhabit the mines. Once, some scientists spotted some bubbly and flammable water coming out of a drill hole at Soudan half a mile underground. There wasn’t supposed to be any methane at Soudan, so it was puzzling why the water was flammable. They took samples of the water, and when it was tested, they found living organisms in it that were feeding off the iron and producing methane. I find it amazing that organic life is living off iron that far underground.

The view from Soudan is also beautiful. If you happen to be up in the Iron Range I suggest you visit!

Elsewhere in the Iron Range we saw a fawn!