Ore Mountain Mining Region recognised as a UNESCO world heritage site - for which it has been nominated - it should help to preserve it for future generations as a "developing cultural landscape". From the first discovery of silver ore in 1168 in Christiansdorf in the territory of the present-day borough of Freiberg, which is part of the Freiberg Mining Field, mining was carried out uninterruptedly in the Ore Mountains until 1990. Amongst the raw materials mined over the course of centuries were ores of the metals silver, tin, zinc, cobalt, nickel, copper and lead; but anthracite and uranium were also extracted into the
Lateritic nickel ore deposits Nickel laterites are generally mined via open cut mining methods. Nickel is extracted from the ore by a variety of process routes. Hydrometallurgical processes include high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) and heap leach, both of which are generally followed by solvent extraction - electrowinning (SX-EW) for recovery of nickel. Another hydrometallurgical routes is the Caron process, which consists of roasting followed by ammonia leaching and precipitation as nickel carbonate. Additionally, ferronickel is produced by the rotary kiln - electric furnace (RKEF) process. High pressure acid leach processing is employed for two types of nickel laterite ores. 1) Ores with a limonitic