Ødegården Verk
Miners at Ødegården Verk in the 1910s. Supervisor Erland Eide is in the boater hat, front center.
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 Ødegården Verk
Ødegården Verk in Telemark
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| Location | Bamble |
| County | Telemark |
| Country | Norway |
| Coordinates | 58°57′39.39″N 9°33′27.86″E / 58.9609417°N 9.5577389°ECoordinates: 58°57′39.39″N 9°33′27.86″E / 58.9609417°N 9.5577389°E |
| Production | |
| Products | Apatite, Thorite, Rutile, Titanite |
| History | |
| Opened | 1872 |
| Active | 1872–1926, 1941–1945 |
| Closed | 1945 |
| Owner | |
| Company | Compagnie Française des Mines de Bamble, Bamble Apatitt A/S |
Ødegården Verk (Ødegården Mines, French: Les Mines d'Oedegaard), alternate names Ødegården Apatittgruver and Bamble Apatittgruver, was a series of primarily apatite shaft mines and quarries located in the Bamble municipality of Norway. At its peak, Ødegården Verk was one of the largest apatite mines in the country, mining up to 10,000 metric tons of the mineral per year, and some sources estimate its peak operating workforce at over 800 men.
The site of Ødegården Verk is about 1 km south of the E18, turning off on the road Feset between Kragerø and Brevik. Apatite and other minerals were originally transported by horse and cart by local farmers from the site to one of three local ports for shipment: Åby to the east in Åbyfjorden, Brevikstranda on Brevikstrandfjorden to the southeast, or a port to the south in Isnes, just west of the modern port town Valle. Later, a funicular was built between the mines and the docks at Isnes, bringing passengers as well as rocks and supplies up and down the mountain.
The dominant rock type at the deposit is a rutile-bearing scapolite-hornblende rock that was described by Norwegian geologist Waldemar Christofer Brøgger in 1934 as ødegårdite. The main rock exported from Ødegårdens Verk was a special carbonate-rich hydroxylapatite (a mineral in the apatite group). Brøgger named this mineral dahllite after Tellef Dahll and his brother Johan who ran mining operations there at the time.
In the mid-1800s, it was discovered that phosphorus, an essential nutrient that many crops lacked, could be used more effectively in fertilizer if sulfuric acid was added to phosphate rocks, creating superphosphate in the process. Almost immediately phosphate minerals such as apatite were in high demand, and it was discovered that the apatite found in Bamble was especially light in color, indicating a high concentration of phosphate. Apatite samples taken from the mines were described as course, hard lumps with a white yellowish color and an average of 85% phosphate content.
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Wikipedia