Turów Coal Mine
The Turów coal mine or KWB Turów, is a large open pit mine in the southwest of Poland, located outside Bogatynia, Lower Silesia.
Situated 55 km west of Jelenia Góra, 80 km east of Dresden, Germany, and 20 km northwest of Liberec, Czech Republic, the Turów mine forms a part of an area widely known as the "Black Triangle" due to its past heavy industrial pollution, covering portions of eastern Germany, southwestern Poland and northern Czech Republic. The Turów mine, operated by Polska Grupa Energetyczna, represents one of the largest lignite reserves in Poland, with an estimated reserve of 760 million tonnes in coal. The annual coal production of Turów is around 27.7 million tonnes.
Lignite was found near Turasów in 1740. Between 1836 and 1869, almost 70 shafts were excavated. The owners of these mines organized the joint stock company Hercules in 1904, and three years later began strip mining. In 1925 the cap rock was dumped north to the mine. After the Second World War, in 1947, a Polish organization took the mine over from the Russian military administration and the KWB Turów came into existence. In 2005 its lignite resources were 429.7 x 106 t.Gallery
