And its export to Russia. The data on coal mining in the USA and China are given. I will note a few points.

1. It was coal mining in England that was the basis for the formation of industrial production, and the flow of currency into the country, and the construction of the colonial empire of Great Britain.

2. I am writing that Russia is selling oil and gas at extortionate prices. At the same time, domestic prices for them are at the level of moderate profitability. England acted differently. Domestic coal prices were at their highest. And outside - low.

3. I am writing that there is an incorrect interpretation of the concept of "metropolis". The metropolis is an imperial community, but not a certain territory or ethnic group. England was not a British metropolis. Its inhabitants were also part of the imperial treaty and were obliged to supply resources to the needs of the empire. They climbed into the mines and mined coal. And they bought it at an inflated price. They also bought soap made from Russian lard. Coal dust had to be washed off with something.

4. England (Great Britain) sat tightly on the “raw material needle” (coal).

5. Enormous money went from Russia to England for energy resources. As an example, he recently cited the sums that leave Turkey for energy resources - 50-60 billion dollars a year.

6. Donbass is one of the first Russian industrial clusters. Coal mining ensured the development of industrial production.

7. It was the socialists and British trade unions who opened the way (by strikes) to Europe for coal from the USA.

8. The British coal miners' unions carried out subversive activities against their country (they demanded that the USSR stop supplying oil). I will add from myself. Only M. Thatcher was able to break the trade unions.

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coal eye

cornerstone

For those who lived in a now almost forgotten era when the sun never set on the British Empire, the answer to the question of why Britain ruled the seas and vast colonies had a simple and unequivocal answer. The strong foundation of the United Kingdom in the literal and figurative sense of the word was coal. Numerous mines provided fuel for no less numerous English factories and shipyards. Coal was sold abroad, and in return, raw materials that were not mined or grown in the metropolis and colonies were purchased. The British merchant marine boomed after the end of the sailing era, thanks to this trade and the low cost of coal for domestic shipowners.
The dependence of importers on the supply of British coal could, without exaggeration, be called colossal. In Russia, during the Russo-Japanese War, they seriously feared that England, which was sympathetic to the Japanese, might stop the import of coal to St. Petersburg. No one doubted how such a blockade could end for a city where everything and everything was set in motion by steam engines, which required 1 million tons of British coal a year. “Petersburg,” they wrote in those years, “would have been left without electricity, without water, and communication with the inner provinces of the Empire would have been, if partially possible, then, in any case, very difficult. cease their activities military and admiralty factories. France, Italy, Spain and most other European countries, with the exception of Germany, were no less dependent on British coal supplies.

It is now hard to believe that such a rigid dependence on imported coal could exist at all. After all, Russia had its own coal mines and oil reserves in the Caucasus. Oil production flourished not only in Baku and Grozny, but also in the United States, Romania, Persia and in the provinces of the Ottoman Empire, which later became Iraq. Only overseas oil production from 1900 to 1909 increased from 19.5 million to 41 million tons. Hydroelectric power plants were built in many countries.

However, the fact remained. In 1911, the German professor A. Schwemann published an analysis of the world energy market. He calculated that most of the oil - up to 70% - went to the manufacture of kerosene, used in kerosene lamps, and lubricating oils. So the share of liquid fuel for steam boilers and fuel for explosive motors, as gasoline was then called, was less than a third of the oil produced. Schwemann believed that this amount contributes to the development various engines 3.5 million horsepower. Natural gas, the extraction and use of which began in the United States, according to Professor Schwemann's calculations, could produce 2.4 million horsepower. And the capacity of all available hydroelectric power stations in 1909 was estimated at 3.4 million. At the same time, 127.6 million horsepower was generated from coal. So the hegemony of coal was complete and undivided.
And yet the most intriguing thing was that the UK was by no means the world record holder in hard coal reserves. In terms of explored and promising deposits, the British were far ahead of the Americans, Canadians, Chinese, Germans and Russians. But this did not stop Britain from ruling the roost in the global coal market.

Phoenix Guild

The secret of British coal power lay in the mechanism of control over the market, which had been fine-tuned for centuries, as well as in the favorable attitude of the country's highest authorities to the associations of coal producers that controlled coal flows. The British coal monopoly arose quite naturally. All rights to the subsoil belonged to the British monarchs, and, for example, Queen Elizabeth I personally determined which of the entrepreneurs would receive the right to develop certain minerals. During her reign, from the middle of the 16th century, in England, almost the earliest in Europe, industrial coal mining began.
Soon enough, in 1600, the first association of mine owners, the Guild of Masters, was formed, which regulated the prices for black gold of that era. Monopolists, as usual, easily found a common language with the authorities. The respectable owners of the mines guaranteed Her Majesty the payment of a shilling from each extracted cheldron (about 907 kg) of coal, which made it possible to replenish the royal treasury without the troublesome and long collection of taxes and duties from each owner of the mine. In exchange, the "Home Guild" received monopoly rights to trade in coal in the main coal region of Britain - Newcastle. Without the consent of the guild, no merchant ship could be loaded with coal. She also set prices and divided production quotas among the mine owners. At the same time, only large coal producers turned out to be members of the guild, and only the richest of them made up the main committee, where, in fact, all issues were resolved. The small owners of the mines had to either submit or go bankrupt, since coal could only be sold through the guild.

True, very soon the "Guild of Owners" had many enemies - from among both the disadvantaged mine owners and merchants and owners of workshops and factories dissatisfied with the high prices for coal. Their constant demands to reform or abolish the monopoly were heard at court, and in 1609 a royal manifesto was issued abolishing all monopolies. However, nothing has really changed. King James I, who succeeded Elizabeth, and his son and heir Charles I needed money more than they needed the free coal market. So whenever discontent grew, a plenipotentiary commission went to Newcastle, the monarch's messengers spoke menacing words - and everything continued as before. During periods of particularly strong attacks on the formally non-existent guild, the kings again issued anti-monopoly acts and continued to receive payment from its main committee. And three decades after the alleged dissolution of the Guild of Masters, in 1638, Charles I legally restored all its benefits and privileges, including the right to "detain all that coal that will be delivered to the ship other than the guild."
By that time, the Guild of Owners had established firm principles for managing the energy market. The main part of it was considered the local market, where the highest prices were maintained. The most expensive fuel was sold in the richest city in the country - London. Naturally, Londoners called these prices unbearable. Abroad, coal was the most expensive for nearby countries, and for distant countries, whose markets had not yet come under full British control due to their commitment to burning stoves with wood, dumping prices were set.
Coal mining quotas were the main instrument for regulating the market. The main committee of the "Guild of Masters" estimated the approximate demand for coal, and then determined the size of production for each mine. And so that no one would want to break the rules, there was a system of fines, according to which the owner of the mine, who sold coal in excess of the norm, gave the illegally received proceeds to colleagues who were forced to reduce production. Thanks to this, prices steadily crept up, and in 70 years, from 1583 to 1653, to the horror of the British, they doubled.

It seemed that nothing threatened the inviolability of the monopoly. After the next official liquidations, it was revived again and again in different forms and under different names. When new coal fields were discovered in Britain, the monopolists entered into a bitter struggle with the newcomers, which invariably ended in an agreement, the establishment of quotas and their new division.
“There is no doubt,” wrote English historians about the next coal monopoly agreement of 1771, “that, after weighing all the considerations, they considered it good to prefer temporary and expedient concessions to mutual extermination, a merciless struggle, the end of which no one could foresee, and with their point of view, they acted reasonably."
There was always friction within the guild, whatever it was called, as the more powerful members tried to increase their share of sales at the expense of the poorest and weakest. But the conflicts that arose were invariably extinguished, and in the 19th century, owning a mine or shares in a coal enterprise was considered as prestigious as participating in the oil business in the 20th century. The English were ironic that any wealth accumulated by impure means could become attractive in the eyes of society, having undergone purification underground.
In the middle of the 18th century, British mines were the first in the world to use steam engines for pumping water and lifting coal. So the cost of coal was steadily falling, which made it possible to capture more and more overseas markets.

Alternative sources

At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, the dependence of European countries on English coal was almost catastrophic. Only Germany, which had its own coal mines, could provide for itself and even export a small amount of fuel to neighboring countries - Belgium, Holland, Austria-Hungary, France, Switzerland and Russia. Italy, with its small coal reserves, was almost completely dependent on supplies from abroad, with 80% of this coal delivered from England. France, which had its own sufficiently developed coal mining, covered only two-thirds of its needs, receiving the rest for the most part from England.
Neither the French nor the Italians were going to put up with this situation, and by developing alternative energy sources, they got results that were impressive to their contemporaries.
“In striving, following the example of other countries, to get rid of foreign fuel,” the Russian survey of 1908 said, “France has already achieved very great success, namely, for 7-8 years, coal consumption in France remains almost unchanged, fluctuating very little around the figure 48, 5 million tons (in 1898 - 47 million, in 1900 - 48.8 million, in 1903 - 48.2 million tons and in 1905 - 48.669 million tons) Despite the fact that the industry, railways and fleet of France are developing very rapidly , the import of foreign coal in its quantity remains almost unchanged ...

The stationary consumption of foreign and domestic coal by France is explained by the use of improved methods of converting thermal energy into mechanical energy, but hydroelectric installations have created especially strong competition for coal, which, as in Italy, on the one hand, serve to develop industry, on the other hand, encourage completely or partially replace steam engines with electric motors.
Italy and Switzerland have made no less progress. But in Russia, before the Crimean War of 1853-1856, energy dependence on England was viewed quite calmly. First of all, because the dependence was mutual. Russian merchants controlled a significant part of the British grain market, and for some other goods they were simply monopolists. For example, all high-quality English soap was made from Russian lard. And the prices for eggs in London fell sharply in spring and autumn, when the season for the delivery of this product from Russia began, without which a real English breakfast is unthinkable. There was nothing to talk about hemp and flax, since the British believed that strong fibers were much more profitable to transport from Russia than to mine in their own colonies. Moreover, the British who came to St. Petersburg bitterly wrote that British coal in the Russian capital is 40% cheaper than in London.
However, during the Crimean War, goods from Russia were strongly pressed by competitors - the situation ceased to please both the Russian government and the Russian layman. Calls began to be heard in the country to find an alternative to English coal, because annually had to pay for it an astronomical amount for those times - 20 million rubles, which was often called a tribute to the new Vikings. With the beginning of the development of the Russian railway network, coal consumption increased so much that the St. Petersburg port could no longer cope with its acceptance, and in 1900-1910 its expansion was required, which, according to the initial project alone, cost 22 million rubles.
The railway boards, together with the Ministry of Railways, proposed to the imperial government to follow the path of France, Italy and Switzerland. By order of the railway services and private entrepreneurs, a survey of the rivers was carried out, after which several projects were proposed, the most preferable of which, due to its proximity to St. Petersburg, was considered a hydroelectric power station on the rapids of the Volkhov River. However, the solution of the issue was constantly postponed, since the best way to combat English coal dominance in Russia was considered the development of its own coal mining.
The development of mines in southern Russia, in the area later called the Donetsk coal basin, began in the 19th century., and was accompanied by a real coal fever. In areas with proven reserves, "peasant mines" began to appear en masse - caves dug by local residents and visiting hunters for easy money. Amateur miners often died in their mines, and it was extremely problematic to sell the coal dug up by them, since at the beginning of the development of South Russian coal there were no access roads there.

Over time, full-fledged mines, railways, and even the Union of Miners of the South of Russia appeared, in which some of its participants saw a domestic analogue of the British "Guild of Masters". But the results were completely different. Production grew, but South Russian coal was only able to compete with British coal at the metallurgical plants built in the same southern provinces. And in the rest of the empire, the British won outright. In St. Petersburg, a pound of British coal cost from 16 to 18 kopecks, and South Russian - more than 22.
Russian coal miners (among which, over time, there were more and more foreigners who bought mines) sought from the government special preferential tariffs for the transportation of coal. But calculations showed that even after their introduction, the price of domestic fuel would not fall below 21 kopecks per pood. The only thing that the Union of Miners of the South of Russia managed to achieve was the introduction in 1884 of special duties on English coal imported through the southern Russian ports, primarily Odessa - they became four times higher than in the Baltic. Only these ever-increasing duties helped to limit the import of British fuel into Russia.
Having eliminated competitors on their territory, the Russian mine owners decided to develop the countries that originally imported British coal: Bulgaria, Romania and Italy. In 1902, the next congress of the Union of Miners decided to send an expedition to these countries to study the markets. But according to the good Russian tradition, this trip turned into a pleasure voyage for a group of mine managers and mining specialists. Even before their departure, it was clear that Russian coal could not compete with British coal either in the Balkans or in the Apennines. In order to somehow get closer to British fuel in price, it was necessary to cancel all export and port duties on South Russian coal, and the government was required to pay special bonuses to miners for exporting coal. In addition, the mine owners found that the sale of their products is difficult due to the poor familiarity of consumers with it. Therefore, a cruise of the steamship-exhibition on the Black and Mediterranean Seas was organized.
“The Floating Exhibition,” Professor P. Fomin later recalled, “was organized by the Russian Society of Shipping and Trade in the autumn of 1909 and was intended to visit the ports of Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece and Egypt in order to familiarize consumers in these markets with the products of the mining and mining industry of southern Russia. The initiators of the Exhibition turned to the Council of the Congress of Miners of the South of Russia, and as a result, the Council of the Congress arranged a special showcase at the exhibition (in the form of an underground part of a coal mine, with samples of products from the mining and mining industry of the Donetsk Basin); the other part of the samples received was sorted into boxes and distributed to consumers of those ports where the ship of the Floating Exhibition called ...
The exhibition captured a significant area: it visited two ports in Bulgaria (Varna and Burgas), fifteen ports in Turkey (Constantinople, Dardanelles, Jason, Thessaloniki, Suda, Jaffa, Kaifa, Beirut, Tripoli, Alexandretta, Mersina, Smyrna, Samsun, Kerasund and Trebizond), one port in Greece (Piraeus) and two ports in Egypt (Alexandria and Port Said).

The exhibition aroused great interest in the Donets Basin from the trade circles of the Middle East, the Council of the Congress received many proposals to put trial lots of goods, inquiries about prices, delivery conditions, etc. But at the same time, all the difficulties facing on the way to doing this.
Here, first of all, the lack of trade organization should be noted. It was quite obvious that neither the Council of the Congress of Miners of the South of Russia, nor individual miners, who, of course, were unable to fight the powerful British trade organization in these markets, were able to master the Middle Eastern and Italian markets; yes, besides, everyone was guided by the elementary considerations inherent in any participant in commercial competition, so that, having become a pioneer in this matter, not to prepare the ground for his commercial rival, who, along the paved path, can use the results of the work of such a pioneer.
However, the main conclusion after the trip was the following: why export and spend a lot of money on promotion to foreign markets, when you have your own, immense Russian. And they gave up on ousting the British from the south of Europe and the north of Russia.

Dark European

The United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries did not look like a significant player in the global coal market, as analysts at the time believed, because almost all of the coal produced was consumed by American industry. Therefore, the modernization and mechanization of overseas mines that began in the 1900s was not seen or appreciated in Europe. However, soon enough, American coal completely replaced English from Canada and South America.
The next stage of American coal expansion began during the First World War. A considerable number of traditional consumers were cut off from British mines, and the place of the British in the Asian and partly European coal markets began to be occupied by the Americans. However, the finest hour for American coal came after the end of the war. Its results for the coal industry were very sad. The mines in northern France were completely destroyed, and things were no better in Belgium. In Germany, during the war, the existing mines, as they wrote at the time, were almost completely exhausted. In England, it was not without difficulty that a replacement for the miners who died at the front was found, and because of this, coal production in the country dropped sharply. In addition, under the influence of socialists and trade unions, British miners began to organize strike after strike, which eventually led to a pan-European coal crisis.
In 1919, power cuts began in the largest European cities, trams stopped running, and rail traffic was sharply reduced. European newspapers, as the apotheosis of the crisis, wrote about the stoppage of the famous Orient Express, for which they could not find coal in Austria. The Americans did not fail to take advantage of the situation. Steamships with coal went to Europe, and for the future, American coal miners offered to conclude contracts at extremely attractive prices for the consumer. Naturally, the British tried to counteract this pirate raid and already in the early 1920s they partially restored their positions.
“After a period of maximum depression in the second quarter of 1921,” the Soviet review of 1924 said, “the British coal industry is rapidly recovering, the cost of living is falling, labor productivity is increasing, the number of workers is increasing, the cost of production is falling, and the price of British coal is from September 1920 fall from 90s. to 22s. 9d. per ton by January 1922. In parallel with this, English exports again begin to increase rapidly, approaching the pre-war level. "
However, the industrialists and governments of most countries, frightened by the crisis, preferred to intensively develop all types of their own fuel industry.
Following the Europeans, they began to build mines in China, and the permanent civil war between the Chinese militarists did not interfere with this at all. The cheapness of coal from the Celestial Empire was explained not by mass mechanization of mine work, as in the United States, but by the cheapness of labor and the traditions of Chinese miners. As noted by Russian diplomats in China, they did not have the habit of rising to the surface every day: having gone to the slaughter, they remained there for months. This circumstance attracted into the ranks of the miners debtors hiding from creditors and all sorts of people wanted by the authorities. Also, by tradition, the mine owners categorically refused to give the real names of their workers, so that in exchange for not being extradited to the surface, most Chinese miners worked solely for food. The labor of miners and the Soviet leadership cost a little more. So, having huge reserves of labor force, in the USSR they began to develop more and more new coal areas, and supply of British coal to Soviet Union gradually faded away.
However, the real gravedigger of the British coal monopoly was oil. The more it was mined, the lower the cost of new black gold became, the less profitable coal mining turned out to be. In the 1960s, British miners' unions demanded that the Soviet leadership, out of proletarian solidarity, stop oil supplies to Great Britain. But in the USSR, by that time, the economy demanded more and more currency, and politics, as the classics of Marxism taught, was a concentrated expression of the economy. So the requests of the British comrades were ignored. And the last nail in the coffin of the British coal monopoly was driven by mining natural gas in the North Sea.
And the methods of the "Guild of Owners" were used by all fuel monopolists, regardless of what they produced and sold and in what country their boards were based. In imperial Russia, for example, the entire sale of petroleum products abroad through Batum was controlled by the Rothschild firms, and through Novorossiysk - by the Nobels. No small firms that did not agree with them could not export anything and were doomed to an early takeover by the leading players. And this monopoly was also fought hard, but its holders found a common language with officials and continued their game until the end of capitalism in Russia. Only after the outbreak of the First World War and the catastrophic fall in exports did this monopoly naturally die.
And this, in fact, is the main result of the long struggle against British coal and other dominance in the fuel market: natural monopolies die only in a natural way.
EVGENY ZHIRNOV

United Kingdom

(Great Britain), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), - a state in the West. Europe, in the British Isles. Takes o. Great Britain, north-east part o. Ireland and a number of small islands washed by the Atlantic approx. and North m. Pl. 244.1 thousand km 2. Hac. 55.7 million people (1981). Capital - London. B. consists of 4 historical and geographical. areas: England, Scotland, Wales and Sev. Ireland (Ulster). Official English language. The monetary unit is the pound sterling. B. is a member of the EEC (since 1973) and heads the Commonwealth (brit.).
General characteristics of the economy. According to the value of GDP (1981), B. occupies the 5th place among the industrially developed capitalist countries. countries. In 1980 the country's GDP was £193 billion. Art. (in current prices), of which 25% accounted for processing. industry, 5.7% for mining (including primary processing), 2.9% for c. x-in, 6.3% for transport. Leading processing industries prom-sti: engineering, electrical, chemical and petrochemical, to-rye determine the specialization of B. in the world capitalist. trade. In the structure of fuel and energy. the country's balance is 37.7%, 36.9%, natural gas 21.4%, nuclear energy 4.1%, hydropower 0.6% (1980). Electricity production in 1980 284.9 billion kWh.
One of the most important types transport B. - maritime. Cargo turnover of all ports of the country 415 million tons (1980), St. 1/3 to-rykh production horn. prom. Ch. ports: London, Milford Haven, Tes Hartlepool, Shetland, Fort, Southampton, Grimsby and Immingham, Orkney, Medway, Liverpool, Manchester. The length of the car roads 363 thousand km (1980), railway - 17.7 thousand km (including 3.7 thousand km electrified). There is an extensive network of oil and gas pipelines (including underwater ones).
Nature. Relief center. and southeast. parts B. hilly-flat; in Scotland, Wales and S. Ireland is dominated by low and uplands, strongly smoothed by glaciers and river erosion. In the west of Scotland are the Grampian Mountains, with the highest in the B. city of Ben Nevis (1343 m). To the south of Scotland are the Pennines (Kpocc Fell, 893 m) and the domed Cumberland Mountains (Scofell, 978 m). The Wales Peninsula is occupied by the Cambrian Mountains (Snowdon, 1085 m). The climate is temperate oceanic (cp. temp-pa January 3.5-7°C, July 11-17°C); precipitation on the plains 600-750 mm, in the mountains 1000-3000 mm per year. Ch. rivers: Thames, Severn, Trent, Mersey. Leca make up 9% of the territory, many arts. park plantings. Means. part of the country is occupied by protected areas. E. G. Martynov.
Geological structure. In geostructural terms, the territory from N. to S. it is subdivided into the ancient Hebrides (protrusions of the Precambrian of North-West Scotland and the Hebrides), the Caledonian folded belt of Scotland, Sev. England and Wales, the Precambrian of Wales and the Midlands, the Caledonian London-Brabant massif and the Hercynian foldbelt. The Hebrides massif is composed of the Lewis polymetamorphic. complex (2.9-1.1 billion years), including, para- and, migmatites, cut through by intrusions. educated premier. late Precambrian, Cambrian-Ordovician and Silurian marine deposits, Devonian and Carboniferous continental marine red-colored deposits, as well as Mesozoic continental () and marine () deposits, Paleocene-Eocene basalts with subordinate covers of rhyolites and trachytes.
The Caledonian foldbelt, which is ca. 300 km, subdivided into sowing. a marginal zone thrust over the Hebrides massif; zone of Caledonian metamorphism, experienced DOS. at the beginning of the Ordovician; Middle Valley of Scotland, filled with Devonian and Carboniferous deposits; Caledonian non-metamorphic. zone south. Scotland and sowing. Anglia (Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian formations, crumpled at the end of the Silurian - the beginning of the Devonian) and the Welsh Trough, coal-bearing Carboniferous are confined to Krom. The zones of the Caledonian belt are separated by large deep faults. The Precambrian craton of Wales - Midland is composed of a complex of Upper Precambrian gneisses and crystalline. shale, unconformably overlapped lower. Paleozoic. North-West part of the London-Brabant Massif in B. is represented by folded Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian sedimentary rocks. Caledonian, composed of variegated ancient red sandstone (lower and cp.), performs numerous. intramountain and intermountain hollows. The Epicaledonian cover is formed by ancient red sandstone (Devonian) and platform deposits of the lower. carbon. Within South. B. (Cornwall, Devon) is located Hercynides, composed of geosynclinal marine deposits of the Devonian and lower. Carboniferous, intruded by granitoids. Hercynian Preim. continental coal-bearing molasse (cp. and top.) performs numerous. depressions to the north from the front of the Hercynides (South Wales, Oxfordshire, Kent). Epihercynian is composed of a variety of Permian, Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits, the most common in the south. England. For the Hercynides zone, southwest. England is characterized by rich deposits of ores of tin, tungsten, copper and kaolin. Ha throughout the territory. B. Pleistocene glacial and periglacial deposits are widely developed. E. G. Martynov.
Hydrogeology. Ha terr. B. stand out hydrogeol. region folded zones and platform cover. The region of folded zones is structurally represented by scattered depressions in the mountainous part of the country. fresh water resources groundwater limited. The waters are concentrated in the crystalline weathering crust. rocks of the Precambrian and in the permeable horizons of the shale-terrigenous sequence of the Paleozoic. Springs are exploited, which provides 5% of the water needs. Insufficiency of groundwater resources is more than offset by uniform and abundant moisture, which creates a reserve for the transfer of surface water to less water-provided districts of the country.
The area of ​​the platform cover in the flat part of the country is structurally divided into a group of artesian basins and uplifts separating them. Main aquifers - Upper Cretaceous (50% of the country's fresh water resources) and Permian-Triassic (25%). The thickness of the limestones of the aquifer top. chalk developed in the London, Northeast and Hampshire artesian basins, 100-500 m, deep. roofing up to 200 m. springs and wells up to 50-100 l / s. Water in the main fresh (0.3-0.5 g / l). In connection with excessive pumping of water in the London region, by 1940 the water in the chalk layer fell by 75 m and the originally flowing wells were deepened. To water the chalk layer (in the north and west) in winter, it is pumped from pp. Lee and Thames waters, past specials. processing. The thickness of the sandstones of the Permo-Triassic aquifer (small artesian basins) is 100-300 to 1000 m, the roof depth is up to 30 m. Well flow rates are up to 60, less often up to 100 l/s at cp. values ​​3-6 l/s. Waters from fresh (0.5-0.8 g/l) to highly mineralized and brines of Cl- - Na+ composition. 2689 * 10 6 m 3 of groundwater is used, which is 1/3 of the country's total water consumption. G. G. Golubkova, J. Scott.
Minerals. The bowels of B. are rich in oil, natural gas, kam. coal, kaolin, fluorite (Table 1); there are deposits of tin ores, stone. and potash salts, celestine, refractory clays, non-metallic building materials, oil shale and small (more often worked out) deposits of ores of iron, copper, lead, zinc, barite and witherite.

B. takes 1st place among the capitalist. European countries in terms of oil reserves and 2nd place in terms of natural gas reserves. Prom. Oil and gas deposits lie under the bottom of the Northern Sea on the shelf within the Central European oil and gas basin. Small deposits of oil and gas are known in the British Isles (main sample in Nottinghamshire), b.ch. they have been worked out. Main oil and gas deposits of the Northern Cape occur in Paleogene deposits (, Montrose, depth 1500 m), top. Cretaceous (Magnus, Piper, Claymore, 2400 m), Jurassic (Testle, Dunlin, Brent, Hutton, Ninian, Kormorant South, Beryl, 2700 m), Triassic (Hewett, c. 3300-3600 m), Permian (Argyle, Viking, Indefatigable, 4000 m).
According to the reserves of stones. coal B. occupies the 2nd place among the capitalist. European countries. Coal basins are connected with Kam.-Ug. deposits of Caledonides and form four groups: South (South Wales, Somerset-Bristol, Kent, with total reserves of 43 billion tons), Central (Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, North Wales, 90 billion tons), Northern (Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, 16 billion tons) and Scottish (Scottish basins. 13.5 billion tons). Coals from long-flame to anthracites; seams in cp. 1-2 m.
The iron ore deposits in B. are severely depleted. Deposits of sedimentary type are confined to Ch. arr. to the Jurassic deposits of the Caledonian cover. The largest deposits (Millom, Egremont, Beckermet, Korby, Northampton) are concentrated in the region of Scunthorpe, in Cumberland and Northamptonshire.
According to the reserves of tin ores, B. occupies the 1st place in the West. Europe (4% of the reserves of industrialized capitalist and developing countries). Mineral deposits located south of the Hercynide front on the Cornwall Peninsula are associated with Late Carboniferous granite intrusions; also known tin sea shelf on the sowing. coast of Cornwall. Ores b.h. complex (also contain zinc and tungsten). The ore bodies are represented by veins and mineralized zones up to several kilometers long. km at a thickness of 0.3-12 m (average 1.2 m). Largest deposits: South Crofty, Mount Wellington, Jevor. Near Plymouth, a deposit of poor quality is known. tin-tungsten ores Hemerdon.
Reserves of lead-zinc and copper ores in B. are extremely limited. Mines of copper ores (Cornwall, Devon) are exhausted, dumps are being developed. B Sev. Wales revealed means. reserves of poor (up to 0.3% Cu) porphyry copper ores. Small deposits of poor polymetallic. hydrothermal ores (Cumberland, Derbyshire, Cornwall, etc.) have been worked out.
According to the reserves of fluorite B. occupies the 4th place in the West. Europe. Minings are known in Yuzh. Penninach and Sev. Pennines in the counties of Derbyshire and Durham and are represented by veins and metasomatic. deposits in carboniferous limestones.
Deposits of potash salts are concentrated in the deposits of zechstein in the northeast. coast in the p-not Billingham, rock salt - in the main. in Triassic deposits in the Liverpool p-not in the Cheshire-Shropshire salt-bearing basin. (the largest deposit Kuper Marl). The deposits of barite (Devon), celestine (in the region of Bristol) are known.
B. is rich in kaolin. The country's largest kaolin deposits, St. Austell and Lee Myp, are located in the Hercynian Granite Development Area (Cornwall, Devon). Pottery (main deposit Bovi) are confined to Tertiary deposits, refractory clays - to Carboniferous, lying under coal seams, brick clays and clayey - to the top. jure, - to the bottom. chalk (deposits near Lower Greensend) and Jura (near Bath).
B. is rich in non-metallic building materials, deposits to-rykh are widely developed on the territory. countries and on the shelf. Mines of sand and gravel in the main. associated with Quaternary and Lower Cretaceous deposits in the south. and southeast. B. Sandstones dated to the Precambrian, lower. Paleozoic and Carboniferous in England and Wales; 70% of the limestone and dolomite reserves are associated with Kam.-ug. sediments (layer thickness reaches 1 km). Gypsum and anhydrite deposits are located in Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire (Permian and Triassic deposits), as well as in Cumberland (Upper Permian) and East Sussex (Upper Jurassic). The thickness of the seams is 1.8-4.5 m. E. G. Martynov.

History of development of mineral resources. The use of gp (flint) for the manufacture of tools in B. began in the lower. Paleolithic (300-100 thousand years ago). Ancient workings of flint are studied at B. Country, at Grimes Graves. In Stonehenge, near the city of Salisbury, buildings are known (pairs of stone columns with lintels) from huge boulders weighing approx. 30 tons, presumably delivered from quarries 200 km from Stonehenge (3rd-2nd millennium BC). Archaeological mountain monuments. the affairs of the Bronze and Iron Ages are practically destroyed by later developments. Studies of the settlements showed that in con. bronze - early Iron Age in Alderley Edge (Cheshire) and Sev. In Wales, they began mining copper, and in Cornwall, tin ores. In the Iron Age (from the 5th century BC), open-cast mining began. ore in the Forest of Dean (Glamorganshire), which was smelted with charcoal. In Kimmeridge (Wessex), mines are known (approximately 6th century BC - 1st century AD) for the extraction of slate, in the Lower Jurassic deposits of the coast near Whitby (Yorkshire) it was mined.
With the Roman conquest B. (1-4 centuries) spread antique technique (cm. Mining engineering); Roman tin mines are known in Derbyshire, in the Mendip Hills and Halkin (Flintshire) and in Cornwall.
After the Norman conquest B. (1066) in Radlane (Flintshire) developed zhel. ores. It is known that coal mining has been carried out since the 12th century, although it apparently began at the beginning of our era. From the 14th century known open-cast mining of coal in the form of bell-shaped pits deep. up to 12 m, from which the coal went up in baskets; diverted by an underground drainage ditch. From the 16th century the development of coal in short columns is being introduced at a depth of mines up to 30 m; in the 17th century the depth of the shafts reached 90 m. Rudu in the 14th-17th centuries. ( , lead, ) was mined in Beer Ferpepc (Devonshire), Mendip Hills, Shropshire (Wales) in open pits, then in trenches and adits. From the 14th century in the mountains in fact, a gate was used, from the 17th century. - lifting (water wheels, etc.). B 16th c. miners from Germany also worked in the mines and mines in B..
Coal mining from 16 to early. 18th century increased from 200 thousand to 3 million tons per year. B 18th c. the coal industry was the most developing industry in B., which laid the foundation for the prom. coup. The first steam engine to replace the horse drive was an engine designed by T. Savery, dubbed "miner's friend". B cep. 18th century began to use a pump with a steam engine T. Huyukomena for drainage, which made it possible to develop flooded horizons at great depths. In 1774, J. Watt used the first steam engine for dewatering the mine. In 1738, steel rails were laid for the first time in Whitehaven, replacing wooden ones (their wider use began in 1767); the first locomotives appeared in the mines.
Center for the production of tin in the 18th century. was the Cornwall Peninsula, where miners from the continent were settled in the Middle Ages. In Cornwall, Cumberland, N. In Wales and other p-nahs, copper was mined, in Cardiganshire and Derbyshire - silver-lead ores. Main centers of zinc smelting in B. appeared in the Swansea region (c. 1720) and near Bristol (c. 1740). Extraction of iron ore, which came in the 17th century. into decline due to the depletion of forest reserves, the low power of horse-drawn transport, in the 18th century. satisfies only ok. 30% of the country's needs. For example, in 1740 B. imported (mainly from Sweden and Russia) twice as much iron as it produced. With the advent of coke and hot blast, the production of iron increased dramatically.
From the beginning 19th century new technologies are being created. facilities. Ha coal mines began to use steam-driven fans, a safe mine lamp, protected by a metal. a grid or a cylinder, which was invented simultaneously by G. Davy and J. Stephenson (1815). From the middle of the 19th century in underground mining, ponies were used to haul steel. The extraction of coal was carried out manually using a butt (in some cases, BB was used); fastening was carried out with wooden racks. Mine installations (central drainage pumps, main ventilation fans) had a steam drive; cases, compressed air was used. The use of electricity in the mines of B. began in 1880, when St. 4000 mines and annual production was approx. 200 million tons of coal. The first one with an electric motor with a power of 7.5 kW began to work at sh. "Normanton" in Yorkshire in con. 19th century; by 1903 there were 149 cutters in operation.
The extraction of non-ferrous metal ores in B. reached its highest rise in sep. 19th century, when B. entered one of the first places in the world in the production of copper, tin, and lead. K con. 19th century The extraction of non-ferrous metal ores fell into decline due to the depletion of deposits (mining from old dumps) and the import of copper from the USA, and lead from Spain. M. A. Yusim, B. Ya. Petrukhin.
Mining. General characteristic. Main mining industries. prom-sti - mining of coal, oil and gas (map). B 1980 in mining. 345 thousand people were employed in the industry. (1.4% of the working population). In the structure of the horn. prom-sti (1979) coal accounts for 33% of the value of the industry's products, 48% for oil, 7% for natural gas, and non-metallic construction. materials 12%. See map.


B mining prom-sti operate state. and private companies. The Coal Board controls almost all mining, with the exception of small mines and quarries, transportation and coal (turnover £4,700 million, 1981); British Gas Corp. - b.ch. production of natural gas on the shelf of the Northern Cape (especially in the southern sector) and its entire distribution in the country (5235 million pounds. St.). The state is a co-owner of 39% of the shares of one of the 7 largest oils. companies of the world "". B mining prom-sti operates a number of multinational. oil and gas monopolies (oil production in the North Sea): Amoco, Burmah, Conoco, Gulf, Occidental, Mobil, Phillips, Texaco.
Non-ferrous metal ores, salt, shale, non-metallic building materials are mined in the country by small private companies. Mines of gold, silver and oil are in B. the property of the state, regardless of the ownership of the site on which they lie; coal belongs to the National coal management. According to the law (1972), the state pays up to 35% of the cost of exploration and production of non-ferrous metal ores, fluorite, barite and potassium salts.
B. provides itself with coal, gas, light grades of oil and non-metallic constructions. materials (Table 2).


Ores and concentrates are almost completely imported. Heavy grades of oil, necessary for industry, are also imported. In 1980, mining products were imported. industry (ores, concentrate, fuel) by 10,958 mln. Art., which is 21.9% of the country's total imports. B. imports the following main. types of products: zhel. ores and concentrates (mainly from Canada, Sweden, Brazil, Norway), (mainly from Canada), lead (primarily from Canada and Pery), zinc (mainly from Pery, Canada), tin ( mainly from Bolivia), (from South Africa and Brazil), (mainly from South Africa). In addition, a large number of semi-finished products and scrap of ferrous and non-ferrous metals are imported. Oil imports (1980) accounted for 13% of the country's imports (mainly from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq). Export value of mining products. industry £7,867 million Art. (1980). B.ch. is exported. mined kaolin, a small number of kaolin. coal (4 million tons), table salt, bromine. The export of oil produced in the Northern Sea (to the USA and other countries) is growing rapidly (51 million tons in 1981). C. C. Artobolevsky, J. Scott.
Oil industry. Onshore oil production began in 1919 and then continued to a small extent. volume. Fracture in oil production. prom-sti B. began in the 60s - early. 70s, when in sowing. p-nah North m. were discovered oil. deposits, which means that part of them is located in the British sector. Since 1975, the first offshore oils have been put into operation. deposits: Argyle, Fortis, Brent, etc., due to which oil production increased sharply and amounted to 71% (1981) of the total production of the countries of the West. Europe (1st place in Western Europe).
B. h. of oil in B. is extracted from offshore deposits, where exploitation is carried out in the main. from gushing, less often mechanized. wells (pumping operation). The following deposits are being developed: Fortis (production in 1980 24.6 million tons), Nainian (11.4), Piper (10.4), Brent (6.8), Beryl (5.4), Testl ( 5.3), Dunlin (5.2) and others. The depth of productive formations is 2400-3000 m. Well flow rates are high, for example. 50 fountain wells operate at the Fortis field with a total average daily production of 68 thousand tons. Oil is characterized by high quality: low sulfur content (0.33-1.3%), low (820-870 kg / m 3). Development is carried out at the depths of the sea of ​​St. 100 m in adverse climatic conditions. conditions of stationary piled steel and reinforced concrete drilling platforms of gravity type. The lower hollow elements of reinforced concrete platforms serve as oil storage facilities. Sometimes, instead of fixed platforms, floating platforms (the Argyle field) are used, with wellhead equipment on the seabed. Oil is transported via main oil pipelines to transshipment bases, where it is processed and, after processing, distributed to the oil refinery. s-dy. There are 19 processing plants in the country. z-dov total power approx. 125 million tons (1979). The largest ones: in Foley (17.3 million tons per year) - owned by the company "ESSO"; in Stanlow (16.8 million tons) - "Shell"; on o. Green (10.4 million tons) - British Petroleum. The increase in oil production is planned due to the commissioning more offshore deposits (up to 30 deposits by 1990).
Gas industry. In terms of natural gas production B. takes 2nd place (1981) in Zap. Europe (19.7% of production), which fully meets the needs of the country. Ok. 90% of gas is produced from offshore deposits. Gas fields are developed in the main. in the south parts of the British sector of the North Cape (the Indefatigable, Leamen, Hewett, Viking, and West Saul fields); a gas condensate deposit is operated in the north. Development is carried out at depths. sea ​​up to 180 m (depth of deposits in cp. approx. 1300 m) from steel piled platforms. Produced gas is stored in various ways, incl. in underground gas storages formed during the extraction of salt by the method of dissolution. The length of the gas pipeline system (with a pressure of 6.9 MPa) from four coastal points of gas receiving ports (Bacton, Easington, Teddlethorpe, St. Fergus) is 5600 km, distributing. pipelines operating at lower pressures, 226 thousand km. B. I. Pluzhnikov.
Coal industry. The coal industry reached its peak before World War I of 1914–18, when 3,270 mines operated in the country (with a total annual production of 292 million tons of coal, of which 98 million tons were exported), then it began to decline. In 1947, the B. coal industry was nationalized (the National Coal Board was organized). Coal mining to con. 70s amounted to approx. 50% of the total production of stone. coal in the West. Europe; 78% of the mined coal is energy. coals, 2% - anthracite and 20% - coking. Consumers of coal are power plants (82.9 million tons) and coke ovens. plants (8.8 million tons, 1980).
Ok. 90% of coal is mined underground (1981). The country operates approx. 200 mines (over 600 lavas, 1981). B. h. operating mines (56%) built St.. 70 years ago and they give approx. 1/2 of total underground mining. Less than 40 years there are only 33 mines, which account for 15% of production. Most mines in the 60s. reconstructed. mined in 12 regions, of which 10 are located in England; the largest (1980): North East in the Yorkshire Bass. (coal production 13.5 million tons), North Nottinghamshire in the Nottinghamshire Bass. (12.3 million tons) and Western in the Lancashire and Cumberland basins. (11.1 million tons). cp. mine capacity 2000 tons/day; 1/3 of the production comes from mines with an annual capacity of less than 0.5 million tons, and only less than 1/4 from mines with a capacity of over 100,000 tons. 1 million tons (21 ). cp. mining depth 500 m, max. - up to 1100 m. Ha C.-B. (Durham) some mines are developing under the seabed at a distance of 8 km from the coast. Deep-lying formations were opened by vertical shafts with storey crosscuts, at a depth of up to 150 m - inclined shafts, in hilly p-nah - adits. Seams with a thickness of 0.6-3.5 m are being developed (70% of longwalls - 0.9-1.8 m), cp. the thickness of the seam is 1.52 m. The dip angle of the seams is up to 30° (90% of longwalls - the dip angle is 7-8°). The most common development is solid; pillar is also being introduced (25% of production, 1980). cp. the length of the lava is 190 m. Roof control - by the method of complete collapse. The tunneling of workings along the seam is carried out by the main arr. roadheaders. Almost all lavas are mechanized. Coal is mined with the help of combines (with augers, less often drilling executives) and plows. Horn is transported. mass in main conveyors, locomotive and cable haulage are used less frequently. Apply Ch. arr. mechanic supports of the supporting type and protective-supporting (in 80% of the preparatory workings - metal arched). In 1981, approx. 200 million m 3 of mine methane.
There are 63 open pits with an average annual capacity of 200,000 tons and 3 open pits with an average annual capacity of 1 to 1.5 million tons (1981) in the country. cp. development depth 30-60 m, max. - up to 180 m, overburden thickness in cp. 17.5 m. For opening, excavators with a bucket capacity of 10 m 3 are used, for excavation of coal up to 2.3 m 3. Coal is transported by dump trucks (capacity 36-173 tons).
Recycled approx. 87% coal, rock content in run-of-mine coal 30%. Works approx. 200 will enrich. factories (1978) with a capacity of 0.2-3.2 million tons / year. Ok. 56% of coal is enriched using hydraulics. jigging, 35% - gravity enrichment (in heavy media separators and hydrocyclones), 9% - froth flotation.
Plan for the development of the coal industry, adopted by the National. coal management and approved by the government (1977), provides for an increase in coal production by 2000 due to an increase in reserves, the reconstruction of old and construction of new mines (the largest "Selby"). The activities of the coal industry are regulated by laws introduced by the royal inspection of mines and quarries. There are 12 district inspections. B mining. p-nah operate 24 center. mine rescue stations grouped into 6 groups. A. Yu. Sakhovaler.
Iron industry. C con. 50s iron production volume. ores in B. fell sharply due to their low quality (cp. Fe content 28%) and reorientation to high quality. imported raw materials. B con. 70s extraction of iron ores met less than 10% of the country's needs (in the 50s, over 40%). Railway development ore in B. is conducted by the state. by "British Steel Corporation" on three bases. mines - Corby, Scunthorpe and Beckermet. There are 6 quarries in the Korby region, where approx. 2 million tons of ore; in p-not Cunthorpe - sh. "Santon" (0.8-1.0 million tons) and 2 quarries - "Yarborough" and "Winterton" (1.2 million and 0.5 million tons, respectively); in Cumberland - sh. "Bekermet" (about 150 thousand tons). In the future, the extraction of low-grade iron. ore in B. will be reduced and imports of high quality will increase. iron ore raw materials (St. 60% Fe). This is facilitated by a reduction in the cost of transportation by large-capacity special vehicles. courts. For their unloading, ports were built in Port Talbot (serving the metallurgical plants of South Wales), Redcar (factories on the northeast coast of B.), Immingham (factory in Scunthorpe) and Hunterston (factory da in Scotland). O. A. Lytkina.
Mining of non-ferrous metal ores. The development of non-ferrous metal ores has sharply decreased in recent decades, which is associated with the depletion of deposits, technol. difficulties (low degree of metal extraction - 65-70%), hampered by mining and geol. conditions (watering of workings), etc.
For the extraction of tin ores, B. occupies the 1st place in the West. Europe. Main part of the developed tin resources is concentrated on the Cornwall peninsula. From several mines operating in the country, 2 mines - "South Crofty" and "Geevor" - produce approx. 200 years. Tin-ore veins cp. power 1.2 m, length up to several. km, depth OK. 100 m. In 1980, the Jeevor mine produced 118 thousand tons of ore, South Crofty - 210 thousand tons, Wil Jane and Mount Wellington - 280 thousand tons. Alluvial tin-bearing placers are exploited (p-n between Padstow and St. Aevs Bay). It is likely that tin will also be extracted from complex tin-tungsten ores at the Hemerdon deposit. The ore is processed at the local smelter in North Ferriby. At the expense of own resources meet 20% of the country's need for tin.
The extraction of ores of lead and zinc is small and is carried out along the way in the extraction of ores of other metals or by processing old dumps. The country's demand for tungsten is met almost entirely by imports. Insignificant The amount of tungsten is mined at the South Crofty tin mine, formerly mined at the Carrock Fell mine (Cumberland). In the future, some expansion of the extraction of this raw material is possible in connection with the planned development of low-grade deposits of tin-tungsten ores Hemerdon (near Plymouth), which will be developed by an open method.
B. copper deposits are depleted, copper is mined only when tin is mined in small quantities and not every year. O. A. Lytkina.
Mining and chemical industry. Its products are represented in B. table salt, fluorite, bromine, potassium salt and sulfur. B. is the second after the US producer of table salt among the industrialized capitalist. and developing countries (5-6% of production). Ok. 90% of rock salt is mined in Cheshire and Shropshire, the rest in Prisall (Lancashire) and the region of Larne (N. Ireland). The total capacity of salt mining enterprises is 7 million tons (1980). Main a mass of salt (5.4 million tons) is extracted in the form of brines by pumping water into wells and pumping brine from other wells. Bo avoiding the formation of underground voids is controlled by various devices from the surface. The extracted salt is widely used in chem. prom.
B. takes 4th place in the Zap. Europe for the production of acid grades of fluorite. Ores in the main low-quality, with CaF 2 content up to 35% (75% of total reserves). B. h. Ores are mined underground. The total average annual power will enrich. enterprises for the production of fluorite concentrates in B. in con. 70s amounted to 200 thousand tons / year (with 80% of them acid grades). B. h. fluorite is processed at enterprises in the years. Cavendish (Derbyshire) with a capacity of 150 thousand tons/year; Frosterley (Durham) - c. 100 thousand tons/year; Reader Point (Derbyshire) - 80 thousand tons / year (in the future up to 130 thousand tons / year); Blackden and Whitehill (Durham) - 30 thousand tons / year. The need for chem. prom-sti B. in fluorite are satisfied in the main. at the expense of own production
B. provides approx. 30% of the country's need for barite, for which old dumps in Brassington (Derbyshire) are processed. B dumps contained in cp. 30% barite, as well as 15.5% fluorite and 2.4% lead. Production of barium concentrate 54 thousand tons (1980). It is also expected to receive it (over 30 thousand tons) from oil drill cuttings. deposits in the North
B. - the largest in the West. Europe and the third among the industrialized capitalist. and developing country producer of bromine. obtained from sea water (Br 0.06-0.07 g/l) by air desorption at the plant in Amlukh (capacity 26 thousand tons, 1980). Main the amount of bromine (90%) is consumed domestically, 10% is exported to France, Germany, Switzerland, etc.; OK. 2 thousand tons are imported from Israel. Magnesia is also obtained from sea water in Khart-pool (factory capacity cp. 220 thousand tons per year), which in the main. provides B.'s need for this product.
Extraction of potash salts on the territory. B. (North Yorkshire) was started in 1974 when the sh. Bowlby, owned by Cleveland Potash Ltd. The mine was opened by two shafts deep. OK. 1150 m. Silvinite has a thickness of 6 m (K 2 O content 27%), room and pillar mining is used. Ores are enriched by flotation. Power w. "Bowlby" 800 thousand tons of K 2 O per year, the degree of its use does not exceed 40% (1980) due to complicated mining technology. conditions (gas content, etc.), high content of insoluble substances. The possibility of exploiting a new deposit of potassium salts in this p-not by the method of underground dissolution at a depth of 1200 m, layer thickness 9 m, K 2 O content 28% is being investigated.
The bowels of B. are poor in sulfur-containing raw materials; there are no deposits of natural sulfur and pyrites in the country. to the beginning 70s cepy was mined from anhydrite. Later they began to extract elemental cepy from refinery gases. Installations for its production with a total capacity of 480,000 tons per year (1980) are available at 7 oil refineries. factories. In a small number, it is obtained by utilizing the waste from non-ferrous metallurgy plants (4.5%) and the gas-cleaning mass of thermal power plants (0.4%). Local products meet the needs of chem. industry of the country in the elementary cepe by 5-6%. The rest of the quantity is approx. 1139 thousand tons (1980) are imported from the USA, Mexico, Canada, France. H. A. Ustinova.
Clay mining. By extraction of kaolin, B. occupies the 2nd place in the world after the USA (approx. 20% of the production of industrialized capitalist and developing countries). Almost all is mined on the Cornwall Peninsula (near St. Austell and Dartmouth). The largest producer of kaolin is "English China Clays Ltd.". Kaolin is being developed in an open way, coefficient. overburden 8, height of ledges up to 18 m. The drilling and blasting method is used with subsequent hydraulic washing and hydraulic transport of the broken material. For 1 ton of refined kaolin, there are 8.6 tons of waste (3.7 tons of coarse sand, 0.9 tons, 4 tons of overburden and waste rock). Large sand heaps are dumped near the quarries (approx. 60 km 2 of industrial wasteland in Cornwall). Pottery clay in B. is mined near Bovi, where the area of ​​the deposit is 46 km 2, the thickness of the layers is 1-6 m, the number of layers is approx. 40. Refractory clays are mined as a by-product of open pit coal mining, bleaching clays are mined near Lower Greensend and Bath.
Nonmetallic building materials. Extraction of gravel, sand, granite, sandstone, and other building materials in B. is 1/2 of the total production of non-fuel items. St. 16% of non-metallic building materials are mined from the bottom of the sea. The purest white sand, suitable for making the best varieties of transparent glass, is mined in the Lochalin quarry in Scotland. Others are used for the manufacture of lower grades of glass and foundries. Approx. 200 sandstone quarries with a total annual capacity of approx. 10 million tons. Dolomites are also being mined. Igneous and metamorphic. rocks are mined in the main. in Wales, Scotland and Sev. England. Europe's largest "Baddon Wood" for the extraction of granodiorites is located near Leicester, its design capacity is 2.4 million tons per year. The quarry is owned by Readland Roadstone Ltd.
Gypsum is also mined in the main. in Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire, as well as in Cumberland, North Yorkshire and East Sussex.
Extraction of other minerals. Strontium ores are mined in an open pit from shallow open pits at Yeit. A small amount of talc is mined in the country, in the main. in Boltasound (Shetland Islands, Unst), as well as at the Polyphant mine near Launceston (Cornwall). Mica is expected to be mined at the Pitlochry shale deposit (Scotland), with a mine productivity of 5,000 tons of mica. Along the way, silica (200 tons per year) and almandine garnet (1,000 tons per year) will be mined. J. Scott.
Mining engineering. Horn is well developed in the country. mechanical engineering. Total sales of mining equipment manufacturers in 1981 were estimated at £694 million. Art., incl. loaders, plows, tunneling machines and hammer drills, totaling £146 million. Art. (20 producers), conveyors - 106 million pounds. Art. (16 producers), equipment for haulage - 10 million pounds. Art. (5 producers), equipment for coal preparation - 10 million pounds. Art. (8 producers) and other p. and. - £16 million Art. (5 producers), hydraulic lining - 14 million pounds. Art. (21 producers). The largest buyers of equipment are the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, etc.
Production of horn. equipment is engaged in approx. 90 firms (1979); the most important ones are "Anderson Strathclyde" (Glasgow), specializing in the production of tunneling equipment (cutting and bulking machines, etc.); "Compair and Holman Brothers" (Camborne), which manufactures drilling equipment for drilling hard rocks; "Gullick Dobson" - mechanic. support; "Ransoums" and "Rapier" - cranes; "Babcock Minerals Engineering" - equipment for ore dressing.
Offshore drilling platforms, etc. constructions for them in B. are constructed in Ch. arr. contractors engaged in civil construction and are, as a rule, joint ventures with the participation of Amer., French. and netherl. companies (firms "Highlands Fabricators", "McDermott", "McAlpine", "Laing Offshore"). Yu. A. Ershov.
Environmental protection. B. h. of disturbed lands in B. is connected with a mountain. prom-stu: dumps (about 9 thousand ha), troughs, subsidence formed as a result of underground mining, and worked out quarries. The first measures for the reclamation of disturbed lands belong to the con. 19th century Planned work in this direction was undertaken after 1945. Gorn. laws determine the monetary fund for reclamation, the implementation of which provides for the preservation of the upper soil layer (30 cm thick) and subsoil up to 85 cm, the surface and the prevention of failures and subsidence after development is completed. Since 1946 coal management (together with the Min-tion c. x-va) is obligated. works on land reclamation within 5 years after the end of open pit mining. The cost of reclamation of 1 hectare of St. 3600 f. Art. (in 1982 prices). In the structure of the specific volume of costs c.-farms. land cultivation is 28%, 36%, drainage 23%, hedges 7%, auxiliary. work 6%. Full cost will be restored. works reaches 20-30% of the total cost of coal mining. Since 1966, production has been paying from 50 to 85% of the cost of work (since 1975, in some districts - 100%). to the beginning 70s reclaimed ca. 40 thousand hectares of disturbed lands, their total area in B. is declining.
Shallow open pits, after backfilling them and applying the previously removed soil layer, are used in c. x-ve, deeper - for forest plantations, creation of recreation areas and arts. reservoirs (if their bottom is below the groundwater level). Dumps and waste heaps are partly planted or used for backfilling surface dips and in road construction. After backfilling the dips on the territory. former underground developments are housing and industrial. construction
in the development of offshore oil. Mining for the purpose of environmental protection carry out water purification, containerization or waste incineration. C. C. Artobolevsky.
Scientific institutions, training and printing. Geol. research in B. is carried out by the Institute of Geology, the head office of which, together with Geol. service is in Geol. museum in London, and branches are located in various regions of the country. Coal exploration is carried out by the National council of the coal industry and its two departments of the furnace. scientific research and development (near Burton-on-Trent) and coal exploration (near Cheltenham). The department of research in the field of safety in mines (subordinate to the state administration of health and safety) has n.-and. institutions in Midland, Buxton and Sheffield. Scientific research is also carried out by large firms, for example. "British
Gas Corp." has five scientific institutions: in London (two), Huyucastle, Solihull, Scotland (Fife county). Training of specialists in the field of geology and mining is carried out in a number of high fur boots: in Birmingham, Leeds, London (Imperial College, Royal College of Mines), Huycastle upon Tyne, Nottingham, Strutchclyde, as well as at the Welsh University (University College, Cardiff) and School of Mining (Cornwall, Camborne). and workers for the mining industry, eg the training center in Aberdeen for training specialists in offshore oil and gas production.
Main mountain publications. case and geology are placed in the footprint. scientific journals: "Mining Journal" (since 1835, annual supplement "Mining Journal Annual Review"), "Gas Journal" (since 1849); "Colliery Guardian" (c 1858); "Geological Magazine" (c 1864); "Gas World" (c 1884); "Mining Magazine" (since 1909); "Metal Bulletin" (since 1913); "Mining Technology" (since 1920); "Mine and Quarry" (c 1926); "Journal of the Institute of Fuel" (since 1926); "Institute of Petroleum Review" (since 1947); "Fuel" (since 1948); "Mining Engineer" (since 1960); "Coal News" (since 1961); "Gas Engineering and Management" (since 1960); "Geological Journal" (since 1964); "Industrial Minerals" (since 1967); "Petroleum Review" (since 1968); "Oilman" (since 1973); "Energy World" (since 1973); "Energy Report" (since 1974); "Quarry Management and Products" (since 1974); "Offshore Oil Weekly" (since 1974); "Quarry and Mining News" (since 1976); "Colliery Guardian International" (since 1978) and others. Geographic Encyclopedia - Britain, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a state in the North West. Europe, on the British Isles (United Kingdom and the northeastern part of Ireland, the Isle of Man and ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Coal mining is a term that includes various methods used to extract a carbonaceous mineral called coal from the earth. Coal is usually located in seams deep underground, which are from one or two to tens of meters high.

History of coal mining

Coal has been used for centuries as a fuel in small furnaces. Around 1800, it became the main source of energy for the Industrial Revolution, and the expansion of the country's railway system made it easier to use. Britain developed the basic methods of underground coal mining in the late 18th century and introduced new technologies in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

By 1900, the US and Britain were the top producers, followed by Germany.

However, oil became an alternative fuel after 1920 (as did natural gas after 1980). By the middle of the 20th century, coal had largely been replaced in industrial and transportation use by oil and natural gas, or electricity derived from oil, gas, nuclear or hydropower.

Since 1890, coal has also been political and social problems. Miners' labor unions became a powerful movement in many countries in the 20th century. Often, the miners were leaders of the left or socialist trends (as in Britain, Germany, Poland, Japan, Canada and the USA). Since the 1970s, environmental issues have been paramount, including the health of miners, landscape destruction, air pollution, and the contribution to global warming. Coal remains the cheapest source of energy at 50% and even in many countries (eg the US) is the main fuel used in electricity generation.

Early history

Coal was first used as a fuel in various parts of the world during the Bronze Age, 2000-1000 BC. The Chinese began using coal for heating and smelting during the Warring States period (475-221 BC). They are credited with organizing production and consumption to the extent that in the year 1000 this activity could be called industry. China remained the world's largest producer and consumer of coal until the 18th century. Roman historians describe coal as a heat source in Britain.

The earliest use of charcoal in the Americas was with the Aztecs, who used charcoal for more than just warmth and as decoration. Coal deposits near the surface were mined by colonists from Virginia and Pennsylvania in the 18th century. Early coal production was small, with coal lying either on the surface or very close to it. Typical methods for extraction included mining from the pit. In Britain, some of the earliest pits date from the medieval period.

Mining from shallow depressions was the most common form of use before mechanization, which occurred in the 20th century. New opportunities certainly increased the level of coal mining, but still left a significant amount of minerals behind.

Industrial Revolution

From its origins in Great Britain after 1750, the worldwide industrial revolution has depended on the availability of coal, powerful steam engines and industrial machinery of all kinds. International trade expanded exponentially when coal began to be used in steam engines and railroads and steamboats were built in the 1810-1840 era. Coal was cheaper and more efficient than wood in most steam engines. Central and northern England contain coal deposits in abundance, so many mines were located in these areas. As demand increased, small-scale mining became unusable, and coal mines were getting deeper and deeper from the surface. The Industrial Revolution progressed.

The large-scale use of coal became an important driving force behind the Industrial Revolution. Coal was used in the production of iron and steel. It is also used as a fuel in locomotives and steamships, propelling coal-fired steam engines, making it possible to transport very large volumes of raw materials and finished products. Coal-fired steam engines were connected to many types of equipment and factories.

The biggest economic impacts of the use of coal during the Industrial Revolution were experienced in Wales and the Midlands in England, and in the Rhine river region of Germany. The building of railroads also played a major role in the western expansion of the United States in the 19th century.

USA

Anthracite (or "hard" coal), clean and smokeless, became the fuel of choice in cities, replacing wood around 1850. Anthracite from the Northeast Pennsylvania coal region was commonly used for domestic purposes because it was of high quality with few impurities. Rich Pennsylvania anthracite fields were close to eastern cities, and several major railroads like Reading Railroad controlled the anthracite fields. By 1840, hard coal production had passed the million short tons mark, and then four times by 1850.

Bituminous (or "soft coal") mining came later. In the middle of the century, Pittsburgh was the main market. After 1850, young coal, which is cheaper but dirtier, came into demand for railroad locomotives and stationary steam engines, and was used for coke. in steel production after 1870. In general, coal production increased until 1918, and until 1890 it doubled every ten years, increasing from 8.4 million tons in 1850 to 40 million in 1870, 270 million in 1900, and reaching 680,000,000 tons in 1918. New young coal fields were discovered in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as West Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama.The Great Depression of the 1930s reduced coal demand by 360 million tons in 1932.

The mining movement, formed in 1880 in the Midwest, was successful in its strike for the tar fields in the Midwest in 1900. However, the Pennsylvania Mine Union turned into a national political crisis in 1902. President Theodore Roosevelt brought a compromise solution that would keep the flow of coal, higher wages and shorter working hours for miners.

Under the leadership of John L. Lewis, the miners' movement became the dominant force in the coal fields in the 1930s and 1940s, creating high wages and benefits. Repeated strikes caused the public to switch from anthracite for home heating after 1945, and the sector collapsed.

In 1914 there were 180,000 "anthracite-coal" miners at their peak, by 1970 only 6,000 remained. At the same time, steam engines were being phased out in railroads and factories, and coal was used mainly for electricity generation. The work in the mines numbered 705,000 men in 1923, falling to 140,000 by 1970 and 70,000 in 2003. Environmental restrictions on the level of sulfur in coal, and the growth of mining in the West, caused a sharp decline in underground mining after 1970. UMW membership among active miners declined from 160,000 in 1980 to only 16,000 in 2005; non-unionized miners predominated. The American share of world coal production stagnated at about 20% from 1980 to 2005.

Today's ideas about the 20th century as the "age of oil" are fundamentally wrong.
The 20th century was truly the century of coal - even in 1955, the share of oil in the world energy balance was only 6%.
Well, the basis of world energy until the middle of the twentieth century was firmly coal - it was he who provided industry and transport with the energy they needed so much. The mass transition to oil began only in the 1920s, and even then it affected only such specific industries as military affairs and road transport.

For those who lived in the world at the beginning of the 20th century, when the sun never set on the British Empire, the answer to the question of why Britain rules the seas and vast colonies had a simple and unambiguous answer. The solid foundation of the United Kingdom in the literal and figurative sense of the word was domestic, British coal. Numerous English coal mines provided fuel for no less numerous English factories and shipyards.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the entire territory of Great Britain was linked by a network of railways, and the British Navy could always count on high-quality Cardiff coal.
Coal was also sold abroad, but in return, with the proceeds from its sale, goods and raw materials that were not produced, mined or grown in the metropolis and colonies were purchased. The British merchant marine boomed after the end of the sailing era, thanks to this trade and the low cost of coal for English shipowners.
Great Britain, despite its modest size, was unspeakably lucky with coal reserves. All the grades of coal needed for the industrial economy were concentrated in three British coal basins: thermal coal was mined in the Yorkshire basin, coking coal was deposited in the Northumberland-Durham basin, and super-quality anthracite was mined in the South Wales basin.
The same Cardiff coal, on which the Russian cruiser Askold achieved a record speed on the Danzig measured mile in 1900.

Since the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Askold has been one of the most active ships of the Port Arthur squadron. The cruiser participated in all her operations: she fought artillery battles with Japanese ships, covered her destroyers and repelled enemy attacks, inspected suspicious merchant ships.
August 10 (July 28, old style) 1904 "Askold", on which the commander of the cruiser detachment Rear Admiral Reizenstein held the flag, together with the Port Arthur squadron participated in the last, unsuccessful breakthrough of the Russian squadron from the dying Port Arthur to so close, but unattainable Vladivostok. Using its high speed and breaking through along with the Novik cruiser past the Japanese squadron, the Askold, which received heavy damage, came to Shanghai, where it was interned until the end of the war.
However, the feat of Russian soldiers and Russian sailors did not save Russia from defeat in the Russo-Japanese War.
After all, no, even the most significant victory, no power of the human "Russian steam roller" could change the ratio of the emerging "world of motors".

The dependence of importers on the supply of British coal could, without exaggeration, be called colossal. In Russia, during the Russo-Japanese War, they seriously feared that England, which was sympathetic to the Japanese, might stop the import of coal to St. Petersburg. No one doubted how such a blockade could end for a city where everything and everything was set in motion by steam engines, which then required 1 million tons of British coal a year. “Petersburg,” they wrote in those years, “would have been left without electricity, without water, and communication with the internal provinces of the Empire would have turned out to be, if partially possible, then, in any case, very difficult. On top of that, in such a hot time, the military and admiralty factories should have stopped their activities.
As a result, bloodless and exhausted Japan, ready to accept honorable peace conditions for Russia and not having the opportunity to continue the war against the “Russian steamroller”, turned out, thanks to England, to be an unexpected winner in the Russo-Japanese War.
However, it must be said that, like Russia, France, Italy, Spain, and most other European countries, with the exception of Germany, were no less dependent on the supply of British coal.

This is not Donbass, this is England!

It is noteworthy that Victorian Britain, which we associate with Sherlock Holmes, English clubs, London cabs, gentlemen, five-o-clock-tees and the magnificent royal court of the time of the “Empress of India and Queen of the United Kingdom” Victoria, then occupied such a high position in the world not thanks to all this "London party", but relying on the hard work of people who were deep underground.

The English "coal miracle" was not created in one year. Those who now talk about “nuclear energy has been developing too long” probably do not know the history of the “oil age” and the “coal age” very well.

Coal mining in Great Britain has been carried out since the 12th century, although there is evidence that Roman legionnaires used English coal to heat their homes. in the first centuries of our era.
Since the 14th century (Russia was then still hanging somewhere within the Central Russian Upland) in England, open-cast coal mining has been known in the form of bell-shaped pits up to 12 meters deep, from which coal was raised up in baskets, and water was diverted by an underground drainage ditch.
From the 16th century in England, the development of coal with short shafts with a depth of mines up to 30 meters has already been introduced, and in the 17th century the depth of the mines has already reached 90 meters. The shafts of English coal mines from this time already run with wooden fastenings from top to bottom, which makes it possible to avoid unnecessary loss of life in case of accidental collapses of the roof of the mine working.

The English way of supplying energy from fossil coal was at that time unique in Europe. Neither Russia nor Sweden - the two leading metallurgical powers of that time - have the problems that have haunted England from the very beginning of her work with naughty iron.
The thing is that, unlike England, Sweden and Russia are rich in timber, and have no problems in obtaining high-quality charcoal, which is so necessary for organizing the bloomery metallurgical process.
The English forests are being exhausted for the purpose of metallurgy at an alarming rate. In the Middle Ages, we can still hear about the noble robber Robin Hood, who hides with his band of gangs in the impenetrable Sherwood Forest, but by the beginning of the 18th century, the forests in the United Kingdom were practically reduced to zero.

However, at the same time, coal production in England is also growing. From the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 18th century, coal production increased from 200 thousand tons to 3 million tons per year.
It must be said that all these 3 million tons of coal were literally raised to the surface by the hands of people - the mechanization of the first English mines was practically zero.

Even at the beginning of the 20th century, manual rolling out of coal from mines was quite commonplace.

In the 18th century, the coal industry was the fastest growing industry in Great Britain, laying the foundation for the Industrial Revolution. It was the tasks of ensuring the rolling out of coal and the pumping of water from the mines that moved forward what we will later call the "English steamroller".
The first steam engine to replace horse-driven water pumps was an engine designed by Thomas Savery in 1698 and called the "miner's friend". However, Savery's steam engine turned out to be inefficient and dangerous, and burst pipes and boilers became constant companions of mining and quarrying.

In the middle of the 18th century, English coal mines began to use a pump with a Newcomen steam engine for drainage, which made it possible to develop flooded horizons already at great depths. In 1738, steel rails were laid for the first time in a coal mine in Whitehaven, replacing wooden ones, and the first locomotives began to appear in the mines.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, new technological means have been created. In coal mines, steam-driven fans began to be used, a safe mine lamp, which was invented simultaneously in 1815 by the Englishmen Humphrey Davy and George Stephenson. From the middle of the 19th century, ponies began to be used to haul trolleys in underground coal mining.

Pony horses were also originally bred not for children's entertainment.

However, the extraction of coal itself was carried out manually using a primitive miner's tool - the butt. From the middle of the 18th century, in some cases, explosives, mainly black powder, began to be used to collapse the layers.
Mine installations: central drainage pumps, main ventilation fans by the middle of the 19th century already had a steam drive, in some cases compressed air was used. The use of electricity in the mines of Great Britain began in 1880, when there were already over 4,000 mines in the country and the annual production was about 200 million tons of coal. The first coal miner with an electric motor of just 7.5 kW started working at the Normanton Mine in Yorkshire in late XIX century, and by 1903, 149 cutters were already operating in the mines of the United Kingdom.

At the end of the 20th century, at the peak of its North Sea oil klondike, with Magnox nuclear reactors, supersonic Concorde and luxurious Rolls-Royces, the UK was consuming about 220 million tons of oil equivalent per year.
And by the beginning of the twentieth century, the same Great Britain, still with massive use manual labor of miners, without diesels or jet turbines, produced about 150 million tons of oil equivalent per year.

And, of course, they exported a significant part of this energy with a profit for the treasury and for English influence in the world.
Now it is hard to believe that such a rigid dependence on imported English coal in the same pre-revolutionary Russia could exist at all. After all, Russia had its own coal mines and oil reserves in the Caucasus. Oil production flourished not only in Baku and Grozny, but also in the United States, Romania, Persia and in the provinces of the Ottoman Empire, which later became Iraq. Overseas alone, the production of new energy from oil from 1900 to 1909 increased from 19.5 to 41 million tons. In many countries at the beginning of the 20th century, powerful hydroelectric power plants were already being built.
However, against the backdrop of the "English steamroller", which reached its peak by 1913, extracting 292 million tons of coal per year, all this was still a drop in the ocean.
The ways of utilizing the new energy of oil and falling water at the beginning of the 20th century are also interesting. In 1911, the German professor A. Schwemann published an analysis of the world energy market. He calculated that most of the oil - up to 70% - went to the manufacture of kerosene, used in kerosene lamps, and lubricating oils. So the share of liquid fuel for steam boilers and fuel for explosive engines, as gasoline was then called, was less than a third of the volume of oil produced at that time.
Schwemann calculated that this amount contributes to the development of 3.5 million horsepower by various engines. Natural gas, the production and use of which began in the United States, according to Professor Schwemann's calculations, could provide another 2.4 million horsepower. The power of all hydroelectric power stations available in the world in 1909 was estimated at 3.4 million horsepower.
Against the backdrop of the need for only one New York a decade earlier in 200 thousand horses and all the problems that accompany the presence of cattle in the city - these were already serious amounts of energy.

At the same time, 127.6 million horsepower was generated from coal. So the hegemony of coal was complete and undivided.
And yet the most intriguing thing was that the UK was by no means the world record holder in hard coal reserves. In terms of explored and promising deposits, the British were far ahead of the Americans, Canadians, Chinese, Germans and Russians. But this did not stop Britain from ruling the roost in the global coal market. After all, any energy production industry is not created overnight.

Great Britain (Great Britain), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), is a state in Western Europe, on the British Isles. It occupies the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and a number of small islands washed by the North Sea. The area is 244.1 thousand km 2. Population 55.7 million (1981). Capital London. Great Britain consists of 4 historical and geographical regions: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Ulster). Official language- English. The monetary unit is the pound sterling. Great Britain is a member of the EEC (since 1973) and heads the Commonwealth (British).

general characteristics farms. At the cost of external gross product(1981) Great Britain ranks 5th among industrialized capitalist countries. In 1980, the country's gross external product amounted to 193 billion pounds sterling (in current prices), of which 25% came from manufacturing, 5.7% from extractive industries (including primary processing), 2.9% from Agriculture, 6.3% for transport. Leading manufacturing industries: engineering, electrical, chemical and petrochemical, which determine the specialization of Great Britain in world capitalist trade. In the structure of the fuel and energy balance of the country is 37.7%, 36.9%, 21.4%, nuclear energy 4.1%, hydropower 0.6% (1980). Electricity production in 1980 284.9 billion kW / h.

One of the most important modes of transport in the UK is maritime transport. Cargo turnover of all ports of the country is 415 million tons (1980), over 1/3 of which are products of the mining industry. Main ports: London, Milford Haven, Tees Hartlepool, Shetland, Forth, Southampton, Grimsby and Immingham, Orkney, Medway, Liverpool, Manchester. The length of motor roads is 363 thousand km (1980), railways - 17.7 thousand km (including 3.7 thousand km of electrified ones). There is an extensive network - and (including underwater).

Nature. The relief of the central and southeastern parts of Great Britain is hilly and flat; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are dominated by low mountains and uplands, strongly smoothed by glaciers and river erosion. In the West of Scotland are the Grampian Mountains with the highest in the UK, the city of Ben Nevis (1343 m). To the south of Scotland are the Pennines (Kpocc Fell, 893 m), as well as the domed Cumberland Mountains (Scofell, 978 m). The Wales Peninsula is occupied by the Cambrian Mountains (Snowdon, 1085 m). The climate is temperate oceanic (average January temperature 3.5-7°С, July 11-17°С); precipitation on the plains 600-750 mm, in the mountains 1000-3000 mm per year. Main rivers: Thames, Severn, Trent, Mersey. Forests make up 9% of the territory, there are many artificial park plantings. A significant part of the country is occupied by protected areas.

Geological structure. In geostructural terms, the territory from north to south is subdivided into the ancient Hebrides massif (ledges of the North-West of Scotland and the Hebrides), Scotland, Northern England and Wales, the Precambrian craton of Wales and Midland, the Caledonian London-Brabant massif and. The Hebrides massif is composed of the Lewis polymetamorphic complex (2.9-1.1 billion years), including granulites, para- and intruded. formed mainly by marine deposits of the Late Precambrian, - and, continental marine red-colored deposits, Carboniferous, as well as continental () and marine () deposits, Paleocene-Eocene with subordinate covers and.

The Caledonian fold belt, which is about 300 km wide, is subdivided into a northern marginal zone thrust over the Hebrides massif; the Caledonian zone, which experienced major deformations at the beginning of the Ordovician; the graben of the Middle Valley of Scotland, filled with Devonian and Carboniferous deposits; the Caledonian non-metamorphic zone of southern Scotland and northern England (Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian formations, crumpled at the end of the Silurian - beginning of the Devonian) and the Welsh Trough, to which carboniferous deposits of the Carboniferous are confined. The zones of the Caledonian belt are separated by large deep faults. The Precambrian craton of Wales-Midland is composed of a complex of Upper Precambrian and unconformably overlain by the lower one. The northwestern part of the London-Brabant massif in the UK is represented by folded Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian. Caledonian, composed of variegated ancient red (Lower and Middle Devonian), fills numerous intramountain and intermountain depressions. The Epicaledonian cover is formed by ancient red sandstone (Devonian) and platform deposits of the Lower Carboniferous. Within the limits of Southern Great Britain (Cornwall, Devon) there is a zone of Hercynides, composed of marine deposits of the Devonian and Lower Carboniferous, intruded by granitoids. The Hercynian predominantly continental coal-bearing molasse (Middle and Upper Carboniferous) fills numerous depressions to the north of the Hercynian front (South Wales, Oxfordshire, Kent). The Epihercynian platform cover is composed of a variety of Permian, Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits, the most common in southern England. The Hercynide zone of southwestern England is characterized by rich deposits of ores , and . Throughout the UK, glacial and periglacial deposits are widely developed.

hydrogeology. On the territory of Great Britain, a hydrogeological region of folded zones and a platform cover are distinguished. The region of folded zones is structurally represented by scattered depressions in the mountainous part of the country. Fresh water resources are limited. The waters are concentrated in the crystalline rocks of the Precambrian and in the permeable horizons of the shale-terrigenous sequence of the Paleozoic. Springs are exploited, which provides 5% of the water needs. The insufficiency of groundwater resources is more than compensated by uniform and abundant moisture, which creates a reserve for the transfer of surface water to less water-provided regions of the country.

The area of ​​the platform cover in the flat part of the country is structurally divided into a group and uplifts separating them. The main aquifers are the Upper Cretaceous (50% of the country's fresh water resources) and the Permian-Triassic (25%). The thickness of the Upper Cretaceous aquifer developed in the London, Northeast and Hampshire artesian basins is 100-500 m, the depth of the springs is up to 200 m and up to 50-100 l/s. The waters are mostly fresh (0.3-0.5 g/l). Due to excessive pumping of water in the London area, by 1940 the water level in the Cretaceous layer had fallen by 75 m and the originally flowing wells were deepened. To water the chalk layer (in the north and west), in winter, water is pumped into it from the Lee and Thames rivers, which have undergone special treatment. The thickness of the sandstones of the Permo-Triassic aquifer (small artesian basins) is 100-300 to 1000 m, the roof depth is up to 30 m. Well flow rates are up to 60, less often up to 100 l/s with average values ​​of 3-6 l/s. Water from fresh (0.5-0.8 g / l) to highly mineralized and brines of Cl - - Na + composition. Used by 2689 . 10 6 m 3 of groundwater, which is 1/3 of the country's total water consumption.

Great Britain ranks first among the capitalist countries of Europe in oil reserves and second in natural gas reserves. Industrial oil and gas deposits lie under the bottom of the North Sea within the Central European oil and gas basin. Small and known in the British Isles (mainly in Nottinghamshire), most of them have been worked out. The main oil and gas fields of the North Sea occur in Paleogene deposits (Fortis, Montrose, 1500 m deep), Upper Cretaceous (Magnus, Piper, Claymore, 2400 m), Jurassic (Thistle, Dunlin, Brent, Hutton, Ninian, Cormorant South, Beryl, 2700 m), Triassic (Hewett, about 3300-3600 m), Permian (Argyle, Viking, Indefatigable, Limen, 4000 m).

In terms of coal reserves, Great Britain ranks second among the capitalist countries of Europe. Coal basins are associated with Caledonian Carboniferous deposits and form four groups: South (South Wales, Somerset-Bristol, Kent, with total reserves of 43 billion tons), Central (Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, North Wales, 90 billion tons). t), Northern (Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, 16 billion tons) and Scottish (Scottish basins 13.5 billion tons). Coals from long-flame to; the thickness of the layers is on average 1-2 m.

Iron ore deposits in the UK are severely depleted. Deposits of sedimentary type are confined mainly to the Jurassic deposits of the Caledonian cover. The largest deposits (Millom, Egremont, Beckermet, Corby, Northampton) are concentrated in the Scunthorpe area, in Cumberland and Northamptonshire.

In terms of reserves, Great Britain ranks first in Western Europe (4% of the reserves of industrially developed capitalist and developing countries). Deposits south of the Hercynide front on the Cornish peninsula are confined to Late Carboniferous granites; tin-ore sea shelf deposits are also known on the northern coast of Cornwall. Most of the ores are complex (they also contain copper, zinc, etc.). Ore bodies are represented by veins and mineralized zones up to several kilometers long and 0.3-12 m thick (average 1.2 m). The largest deposits: South Crofty, Mount Wellington, Jeevor. Near Plymouth, the Hemerdon deposit of low-quality tin-tungsten ores is known.

Deposits of potash salts are concentrated in the deposits of zechstein on the northeast coast near Billingham, rock salt - mainly in the deposits of the Triassic in the Liverpool region in the Cheshire-Shropshire salt-bearing basin (the largest Kuper Marl deposit). Barite deposits are known (Devon), (in the Bristol region).

Britain is rich. The country's largest kaolin deposits, St. Austell and Lee Myp, are located in the Hercynian granite development area (Cornwall, Devon). Pottery clays (the main deposits of Bowie) are confined to Tertiary deposits, refractory clays to the Carboniferous, occurring under coal seams, brick and clay shales to the Upper Jurassic, bleaching clays to the Lower Cretaceous (deposits near Lower Greensend) and Jurassic (near Bath). ).

The UK is rich in non-metallic building materials, the deposits of which are widely developed throughout the country and offshore. Deposits and are mainly associated with Quaternary and Lower Cretaceous deposits in southern and southeastern Great Britain. Sandstones are confined to the Precambrian, Lower Paleozoic and Carboniferous in England and Wales; 70% of limestone and dolomite reserves are associated with carboniferous deposits (layer thickness reaches 1 km). Deposits and are located in Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire (Permian and Triassic deposits), as well as in Cumberland (Upper Permian) and East Sussex (Upper Jurassic). The thickness of the seams is 1.8-4.5 m.

History of development of mineral resources. The use of () for the manufacture of tools in Great Britain began in the Lower Paleolithic (300-100 thousand years ago). Ancient developments of flint have been studied in the East of the country, in Grimes Graves. In Stonehenge, near Salisbury, buildings (pairs of stone columns with lintels) are known from huge blocks weighing about 30 tons, presumably brought from quarries 200 km from Stonehenge (3rd-2nd millennium BC).

Archaeological sites from the Bronze and Iron Ages have been virtually destroyed by later developments. Studies of the settlements have shown that at the end of the Bronze Age - the beginning of the Iron Age in Alderley Edge (Cheshire) and North Wales began mining copper, and in Cornwall tin ores. In the Iron Age (from the 5th century BC), open-cast mining of iron ore began in the Forest of Dean (Glamorganshire), which was smelted with charcoal. In Kimmeridge (Wessex) they are known (approximately 6th century BC - 1st century AD) for the extraction of slate, in the Lower Jurassic deposits of the coast near Whitby (Yorkshire) jet was mined.

With the Roman conquest of Great Britain (1-4 centuries), antique technology spread (see); Roman tin mines are known in Derbyshire, in the Mendip Hills and Halkin (Flintshire) and in Cornwall.

After the Norman conquest of Great Britain (1066), they developed in Radlan (Flintshire). It is known that coal mining has been carried out since the 12th century, although it apparently began at the beginning of our era. Since the 14th century, open mines of coal have been known in the form of bell-shaped pits up to 12 m deep, from which coal was lifted up in baskets; water was diverted by an underground drainage ditch. Since the 16th century, coal mining has been introduced in short columns with a mine depth of up to 30 m; in the 17th century, the depth of the shafts reached 90 m. Since that time, the shafts have been held with wooden fasteners from top to bottom. Ore in the 14th-17th centuries. (tin, lead,) was mined in Beer Ferrers (Devonshire), the Mendip Hills, Shropshire (Wales) in open pits, then in trenches and. From the 14th century, a gate was used in mining, from the 17th century - a lifting winch (water wheels, etc.). In the 16th century, miners from were also working in the mines and mines in Great Britain.

Coal mining increased from 200,000 to 3 million tons per year from the 16th to the early 18th centuries. In the 18th century, it was the fastest growing industry in Great Britain, laying the foundation for the Industrial Revolution. The first steam engine to replace the horse drive was the engine created by T. Savery, called "miner's friend". In the middle of the 18th century, a pump with a T. Newcomen steam engine began to be used for drainage, which made it possible to develop flooded horizons at great depths. In 1774, J. Watt used the first steam engine for dewatering the mine. In 1738, steel rails were laid for the first time in Whitehaven, replacing wooden rails (their wider use began in 1767); the first locomotives appeared in the mines.

The center of tin production in the 18th century was the Cornish peninsula, where miners from the continent were settled in the Middle Ages. In Cornwall, Cumberland, North Wales and other areas mined copper ore, in Cardiganshire and Derbyshire - silver-lead ores. The main zinc-smelting centers in Great Britain appeared in the Swansea region (about 1720) and near Bristol (from 1740). The extraction of iron ore, which fell into decline in the 17th century due to the depletion of forest reserves, the low power of horse-drawn transport, in the 18th century satisfied only about 30% of the country's needs. For example, in 1740 Great Britain imported (mainly from Sweden and Russia) twice as much iron as it produced. With the advent of coke and hot blast, iron production increased dramatically.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, new technological means have been created. In coal mines, they began to use a steam-powered, safe mine lamp, protected by a metal mesh or cylinder, which was invented simultaneously by G. Davy and J. Stephenson (1815). Since the middle of the 19th century, ponies have been used in underground mining to haul steel. The extraction of coal was carried out manually with the help of a butt (in some cases it was used); fastening was carried out with wooden racks. Mine installations (central drainage pumps, main ventilation fans) had a steam drive, in some cases compressed air was used. The use of electricity in the mines of Great Britain began in 1880, when there were over 4,000 mines in the country and the annual production was about 200 million tons of coal. The first 7.5 kW electric motor cutter began operating at the Normanton Mine in Yorkshire in the late 19th century; by 1903 149 were in operation.

Mining. General characteristics. The main industries are the extraction of coal, oil and gas (map). In 1980, 345 thousand people (1.4% of the working population) were employed in the mining industry. In the structure of the mining industry (1979), coal accounts for 33% of the value of the industry's products, 48% for oil, 7% for natural gas, and 12% for non-metallic building materials. See map.

There are public and private companies in the mining industry. The National Coal Board controls almost all mining, with the exception of small mines and the transportation and distribution of coal (turnover £4,700 million, 1981); company "British Gas Sorp." - most of the production of natural gas on the shelf of the North Sea (especially in the southern sector) and all of its distribution in the country (5235 million pounds). The state is a co-owner of 39% of the shares of one of the 7 largest oil companies in the world, British Petroleum. A number of multinational oil and gas monopolies operate in the mining industry (oil production in the North Sea): Amoco, Burmah, Sonoco, Gulf, Occidental, Mobil, Phillips, Texaco.

Non-ferrous metal ores, salt, shale, non-metallic building materials are mined in the country by small private companies. Deposits, silver and oil are in the UK the property of the state, regardless of the ownership of the site on which they lie; the coal is owned by the National Coal Board. According to the law (1972), the state pays up to 35% of the cost of exploration and production of non-ferrous metal ores, fluorite, barite and potassium salts.

Great Britain provides itself with coal, gas, light grades of oil and non-metallic building materials (Table 2).

The plan for the development of the coal industry, adopted by the National Coal Administration and approved by the government (1977), provides for an increase in coal production by the year 2000 due to an increase in reserves, the reconstruction of old and the construction of new mines (the largest is Selby). The activities of the coal industry are regulated by laws introduced by the royal inspection of mines and quarries. There are 12 district inspections. In the mining areas there are 24 central mine rescue stations, united in 6 groups.

iron ore industry. Since the end of the 50s, the volume of iron ore mining in the UK has declined sharply due to their low quality (average Fe content of 28%) and the reorientation to high-quality imported raw materials. At the end of the 70s. iron ore mining satisfied less than 10% of the country's needs (in the 1950s, over 40%). The development of iron ores in the UK is carried out by the state-owned British Steel Corporation at three main deposits - Corby, Scunthorpe and Beckermet. There are 6 quarries in the Corby region, where about 2 million tons of ore are mined annually; in the Scunthorpe area - the state of "Santon" (0.8-1.0 million tons) and 2 open pits - "Yarborough" and "Winterton" (1.2 million and 0.5 million tons, respectively); in Cumberland - the state of "Bekermet" (about 150 thousand tons). In the future, the production of low-grade iron ore in the UK will be reduced and imports of high-quality iron ore raw materials (over 60% Fe) will increase. This is facilitated by a reduction in the cost of transportation by large-tonnage special vessels. For their unloading, ports have been built at Port Talbot (serving the steel mills of South Wales), Redcar (plants on the northeast coast of Great Britain), Immingham (plant in Scunthorpe) and Hunterston (plants in Scotland).

Mining of non-ferrous metal ores. The development of non-ferrous metal ores has sharply decreased in recent decades, which is associated with the depletion of deposits, technological difficulties (low degree of metal extraction - 65-70%), difficult mining and geological conditions (watering of workings), etc.

For the extraction of tin ores, Great Britain ranks first in Western Europe. The bulk of the exploited tin resources are concentrated in the Cornish peninsula. Of the several mines operating in the country, 2 mines - "South Crofty" and "Geevor" - have been producing for about 200 years. Tin-ore veins are being mined with an average thickness of 1.2 m, a length of up to several kilometers, and a depth of about 100 m. "and" Mount Wellington "- 280 thousand tons. Alluvial tin-bearing placers are exploited in small quantities (the area between Padstow and St. Ives Bay). It is likely that tin will also be extracted from complex tin-tungsten ores at the Hemerdon deposit. The ore is processed at the local smelter in North Ferriby. At the expense of its own resources, 20% of the country's need for tin is satisfied.

The extraction of ores of lead and zinc is small and is carried out along the way with the extraction of ores of other metals or by processing old dumps. The country's demand for tungsten is met almost entirely by imports. A small amount of tungsten is mined at the South Crofty tin mine, formerly mined at the Carrock Fell mine (Cumberland). In the future, some expansion of the extraction of this raw material is possible in connection with the planned development of low-grade deposits of tin-tungsten ores at Hemerdon (near Plymouth), which will be developed by an open pit.

Copper deposits in Great Britain are depleted, copper is mined only when tin is mined in small quantities and not every year.

Mining and chemical industry. Its products are represented in the UK by table salt, fluorite, bromine, potash salt and sulfur. Great Britain is the second largest producer of table salt after the USA among industrialized capitalist and developing countries (5-6% of production). About 90% of rock salt is mined in Cheshire and Shropshire, the rest in Priesall (Lancashire) and the Larne region (Northern Ireland). The total capacity of enterprises for the extraction of salt is 7 million tons (1980). The main mass of salt (5.4 million tons) is extracted in the form by pumping water into wells and pumping brine from other wells. In order to avoid the formation of underground voids, various devices are monitored from the surface. The extracted salt is widely used in the chemical industry.

UK ranks 4th in Western Euro