Mässbacken

From the red Orsa sandstone, grindstones were made. For more than a thousand years, the sandstone has been quarried here in the Mäss-backen mining area.

About thirty open-pit mines bear witness to the grindstone industry here, along with a railway track and old tools. Orsa Sandstone Orsa Sandstone was formed around 400 million years ago. The geological period was the Silurian, but unlike limestone, sandstone did not form in a shallow sea but on land as sand dunes between lakes and rivers. What happened at that time was that two continental plates, Laurentia (America) and Baltica (Europe), slowly collided and formed the Scandinavian Mountains, the mountain range in Sweden and Norway. Soon, the mountain range began to break down into, among other things, sand, which is now found in Orsa Sandstone. Later, a meteorite struck The fact that the sandstone remains and is not eroded away is due to the meteorite impact 380 million years ago. In faults in the crater, soft rock layers collapsed and were protected from eroding away over the millions of years. A beautiful stone In the Orsa grindstone museum, there is more to learn. The beautiful reddish Orsa Sandstone has not only been turned into grindstones but also used in buildings. The municipal building in Orsa, the Central Post Office, and the Skånska Bank in Stockholm are all constructed from Orsa Sandstone.