Ancient Magnesium 



What makes Ancient Minerals

 so different than other brands of Magnesium?



Ancient  Magnesium

250.000.000 yrs old



The answer is simple. All other natural  brands of Magnesium Brine are  from Ocean Surface Water explored from the current oceans, while Ancient Magnesium is derived from under the Earth, between 1500 and 2000 meters deep from layers of the Ancient Zechstein Seabed




While all other brands have the need to be filtered thoroughly because of the known contamination of theOcean, Ancient Magnesium Brine is of an untouched nature. But despite that we do have each batch of our magnesium analysed through means of (GMP) Good Manufacturers Practise and to the standards of Total Quality Control before it is released to the public. We go for the best and guarantee the high standard of our product.



Some 240-270 million years ago, the world looked fully different from the world we know now and dinosaurs were yet to be invented. All continents were more or less grouped together as one large continent “Pangaea” with a centre at the equator. In its centre a large inner sea (the Zechstein Sea) was situated, which was separated from the (one) ocean by small strips of land. The inner sea was fed by rivers and ocean flooding once in a while, which flushed salty water into the sea. Since the climate was warm and arid, evaporation equalled or exceeded the inflow, concentrating the salts in the sea. This is comparable to the Dead Sea area nowadays, but at a much larger scale; the sea extended approximately from present-day Great Britain to Poland and Denmark to the Netherlands.

















Mining and extraction methods for salt


In ancient days one would boil a Brine from sea water to precipitate salts. This is a very energy consuming method, given the low salt content of sea water. Sometimes very saline groundwater (brine) was found inlands suitable for salt mining by groundwater extraction. In dry and warm areas solar evaporation could take over the dewatering step.



Conventional Mining


In later days salt mining started, probably from the late 500’s, from shallow salt layers or Diapirs. Salt was mined in a conventional way: first with pick-axes and saws, later with large drilling machines and conveyor belts or Lorries. The salt itself is a very strong, usually fluid tight material which is relative easily mined. Advantage of dry mining is the absence of required evaporation steps; disadvantages are the required separation steps from impurities, the large investment in shafts and subsurface equipment and the relatively labour intensiveness.

Probably the oldest method to produce salt is to evaporate the water in ‘sea water’ and hence to precipitate the salt in a solar pond. In dry and warm areas one can isolate a small part of a sea to form a shallow pond. The sun evaporates the water up to saturation level, after which NaCl precipitates. Finally the NaCl salt can be harvested. This is how all manufacturers of Magnesium extract the Magnesium from the Ocean Water.



Solution Mining


Solution Mining is the easiest way to extract salts from the deep underground. Water injection results in salt dissolution, by which caverns are created:  large brine filled spaces in the salt. Impurities like gypsum and clays do not dissolve and remain in the cavern. Although the Chinese mined salts via Bamboo pipes thousands of years ago already, solution mining is mainly a feature of the 20th century, applying mostly oil- and gas drilling techniques to reach hole depths of hundreds to thousands of metres.

If the salt is required in solid shape (not always necessary for industrial use), the brine needs to be crystallised by evaporation first. Usually a vacuum technique is applied to allow low temperature and multi step evaporation, saving on energy costs.


Our deriver of the Magnesium, mines the Carnallite and Bischofite salt from the Zechstein Sea with a unique mining method. From two nearby Mining Sites, a total of 12 wells are being drilled at depths between 1400 and 1800 metres.


The mining method applies two unique features of the magnesium salt: their tendency to creep (deform under small loads) and their tendency to dissolve preferentially over sodium chloride.


Injection of water in the cavern mixes up the low density (1 kg/l) with the high density brine (1.3 – 1.37 kg/l) to cause high mixing by turbulent buoyancy effects. The mixed flow does not (or almost not) dissolve sodium chloride, by which the natural sodium chloride (halite) layers force the dissolution to proceed in sideward direction along the bedded magnesium salts.  


The unique creep properties and the relatively low cavern pressures (of an average of 10 MPa (100 bars) below the far field rock stresses) make the salts flow towards the well, hence allowing them to be dissolved once more for production purposes. Since the magnesium salts are squeezed into the caverns like a tooth paste, this method is called “squeeze mining”. The brine from this salt is very pure (less than 1% by weight of impurities like sulphates, sodium or potassium), as a result of the extreme predominant solubility of Bischofite. The brine comes to a density at room temperature of some 1,33 kg/l. Four wells presently produce brine saturated salt Bischofite, rendering very high quality brine, with less than 1% by weight of non- Magnesium chloride salts. These brines are presently used for the production of our Magnesium Liquids with 31% MgCl2 and Magnesium Flakes with 47% MgCl2.



The usual precipitation sequence in a “dead sea”








ü     Ancient Magnesium SeaSalt is the purest natural Bischofite mineral (magnesiumchloride.hexahydrate) of the world.


ü      The Zechstein Sea existed 250 million years ago.


ü      The Zechstein Sea was frequently separated from the ocean and dried up.


ü      The Zechstein Sea had three mayor cycles of flushing and drying over millions of years.




ü      Extractable magnesiumchloride.hexahydrate deposits were formed in the Northern part of the Netherlands.


ü      Zechstein Sea is conserved and untouched by modern pollutions.


ü      Zechstein Sea salt is directly extracted from the well by solution mining.


ü      Density of the brine (liquid magnesium) is greater than 1,32 kg/l.



Total Quality Control


The Mining company and the Bottling company both carry the highest standards in production. Through GMP (Good Manufacturers Practise) and HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) the pureness and high quality of the product is assured in the whole chain. For all other business processes the manufacturer is certified by international quality standards ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certificates.