Sciency Thoughts: Finnmark County

Sunday, 25 January 2026

Protesters block entrance to mine project site in Norway.

A group of protesters from the environmental group Nature and Youth have blocked entrances to a mining project in the Hammerfest Municipality in Finnmark County on the northern coast of Norway. The group of about 70 protesters from all over Norway have took the step on Saturday 24 January 2026 in support of the local Sámi community, who believe that traditional fisheries for Salmon and Cod are threatened by the project. Protests of this kind are illegal in Norway, and previous protests at the site have led to protesters being detained by the police.

The location of Hammerfest Municipality the north coast of Norway. Google Maps.

The mining project, which is operated by Blue Moon Metals, aims to excavate around 74 million tonnes of copper ore from a deep pit mine beneath a former open pit mine, which was active in the 1970s. The Norwegian government has approved this project because it considers copper a vital resource for a transition to green technologies (i.e. replacing fossil fuel-derived energy with electricity generated by renewable means).

However, the planned operation intends to dump waste generated from the mine into Repparfjord, an important fishing ground for the local Sámi community, who believe that this is likely to have a significant affect on local fish stocks. The practice of dumping mine waste into the sea is still legal in Norway, but is illegal almost everywhere else (the only other countries which allow the practice are Indonesia, Turkey and Papua New Guinea).

Protesters blocking an entrance to the Nussir Mining Project in northern Norway on 24 January 2026. The banner reads 'We promise a hell - no dumping of tailing in the Repperfjord'. Jannik Abel/Nature and Youth.

Blue Moon Minerals, who acquired the site in February 2025, aim to mine the site in line with a mining permit issued to the former owners, Nussir Property, a decade ago, but Nature and Youth argue that significant new discoveries have been made about fish spawning in Repparfjord have been issued since this time, and that on that basis the mine should not be allowed to proceed.

Houses swept away by landslide in Norway.

A landslide at Kråknes in Finnmark County, northern Norway, has swept a cluster of houses into the sea. The incident happened at about 4.00 pm local rime on Wednesday 3 June 2020, when a section of land 600 m wide and 150 m deep shifted downslope abruptly, carrying with it eight houses. The land remained reasonably intact for most of the slip, but broke up as it came to the top of the beach below, destroying the structures upon it. The majority of the buildings were unoccupied at the time of the incident, as they were holiday homes only occupied at the weekends at this time of year, though one person had to be rescued by helicopter.

Landslide at Kråknes in Finnmark County, northern Norway, on 3 June 2020. Around Zeeworld/YouTube.

The landslide is thought to have been of a type known as a 'quick clay' landslip, in which an entire bedding plain of clay loses its cohesion at once, and flows like a liquid, a type of landslide largely peculiar to areas of heavy Pleistocene glaciation, such as the northern coasts of Scandinavia, Russia, Alaska and Canada. Quick clay deposits were laid down in areas where the land was pushed down beneath sealevel by the weight of glaciers, and has subsequently been uplifted after the glaciers retreated. These clays typically contain far higher salt contents than other marine clays, which can be washed out by rainfall. Significantly, they generally contain significant levels of positively charged sodium cations, which entered the clay as the sea above froze, and help to bond the negatively charged clay particles together. However, sodium particles are particularly soluble in water, and easily washed out, with the effect that once a certain level of sodium has been lost, the entire bedding plane loses its cohesion.