800 kilos of invaluable cryolite stolen from the carport in the estate
– We are both shocked and amazed.
Minerals collector and civil engineer Tom Weidner was recently greeted by 47 empty milk crates in a carport in Frederiksberg in Denmark.
The boxes contained the fruits of an unusually heavy and extensive clearing process in an estate, 15 tons of stone were examined, and 800 kilos of cryolite minerals were found.
For the deceased owner of the house, Steen Ahrenkiel, collected on stone. And he wanted them to be left to the leading geologist.
Steen Ahrenkiel, who was a doctor, civil engineer and keen debater, had become preoccupied with a mystery in Greenland, which he often discussed with Tom Weidner and his fast companion, mineralogist Henrik Friis, who is today an associate professor at the Natural History Museum in Oslo.
The mystery is hidden under the ground at Ivittuut in the Arsukfjord southwest of Greenland, where the world’s only major deposit of the mineral cryolite was found. Cryolite is also known as sodium hexafluoroaluminate and has the chemical formula Na3AlF6.
The cryolite was packed in a cylindrical shape, but how the mineral is formed is a mystery. And for mineralogists, the cryolite deposit is something very special, especially because 50 percent of the mineral consists of fluorine.
– The cryolite deposit in Greenland is the only one of its kind in the world. Due to the high concentration of fluorine, many other reactions and minerals are seen in the area. But how it is formed is the big mystery, and it’s something we’ve been talking to researchers and Steen about for ten years, Weidner says.
In fact, Henrik Friis had been granted doctoral projects on the basis of the cryolite stones, and he had saved some of the large pieces for an exhibition at the museum. A doctoral project was a collaboration between the Natural History Museum and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The other was under the auspices of the Greenland Research Council in collaboration with Aarhus University and the Greenland Institute of Nature.
The cryolite from Greenland is gone
Friis and Weidner had had the stones bequeathed, and the two had chosen the cryolite which appeared to be found in the outermost layers or the edge zone of the deposit because they could conceivably say something about the origin. But they are now gone, and you can not just go to Greenland to find new ones.
The cryolite is a piece of lost Danish history. The deposit was mined from 1854 and was Greenland’s most important export item for 100 years. The cryolite was sent to the Kryolit factory at Østerbro in Copenhagen and used for the production of soda and aluminum.
It also caused the United States to station thousands of troops at the mine during World War II to be the mineral for the production of aluminum, which was important for the war effort. But today, all the cryolite has been mined, and according to Tom Weidner, it is difficult to find material for research.
– Steen Ahrenkiel’s collection was completely unique, and I have no idea how he got hold of the stones. Maybe he swapped them to say on the quay when the ships come in. He was a bit of a thousand artist, says Weidner.
Hope they do not end up as garden stones
Now for the hopefuls that the story of the stolen stones may cause them to reappear. Because even though several of them are beautiful, whitish and sure to look good around the kitchen garden, the researchers want them not to end up there:
– It would be tragic if such a unique stone collection ends its days as a garden stone, says Weidner.
Therefore, he encourages people to get in touch if they have clues in the case. A bounty of 5000 kroner has been promised to those who have information that can lead to the stones being returned to the right heirs. The theft happened sometime between March 20 and April 13.
This article was first published on The engineer for their subscribers. It is available in Norwegian for subscribers of Ekstra through our cooperation agreement.