Creating artificial islands or destroying natural mountains: people are constantly changing the face of the planet. And the miners do an excellent job of this task by changing more and more areas of the landscape. Some of the pits dug up by crushers in an attempt to extract the ore are a real marvel of technology, and the largest of them are visible from space.

Some of these amazing examples of human ability to subjugate nature are created in the form of open pits. This method of extraction is used when the resources are too close to the surface, and the composition of the soil does not allow the use of tunneling. Through the efforts of miners, careers grow until the resources are exhausted. After the quarries are depleted, they turn into landfills, or artificial lakes, but despite this, they continue to amaze the imagination with their scale. We invite you to see the best of the largest quarries in the world.

Diamond pipe "Mir"

Owner: Alrosa
Resources: diamonds
Location: Russia, Mirny
Development started in 1957

It is currently the second largest man-made sinkhole in the world. This diamond mine is located in Russia, near the city of Mirny. The "world" is so huge that flights over it are prohibited, since the mine workings create a very strong downward airflow. The quarry, whose development began in 1957, produced up to 10 million carats of diamonds per year until its closure in 2011. Mir was notorious for its appalling conditions. In winter, the temperature in the quarry drops so much that it freezes the engine oil and rubber, and leads to a gradual shedding of the quarry. By the time the mine was closed, the time it took for the car to get from the bottom of the pit to the surface reached 2 hours.

Diamond pipe "Dyavik"

Owner: Rio Tinto (60%), Harry Winston Diamond Corporation (40%)
Resources: diamonds
Location: Canada
Development started in 2003

The Diavik diamond pipe is located in Canada and is no less impressive than the Mir, despite the fact that it is significantly smaller than its Russian counterpart. Diavik produces 8 million carats of diamonds per year, and the development of the mine began in 2003. It is most notable for the fact that it is located on the island of Lac de Gras, which allows you to observe amazing metamorphoses: in summer the quarry is surrounded by a crystal smooth surface of water, and in winter it is shrouded in an icy desert. A winter road leads to Diavik - a seasonal road is available only two months a year, it stretches over the surface of a frozen lake 375 km north of Yellowknife. The rest of the time you can get to "Diavik" only by air.

Bingham Canyon

Owner: Rio Tinto
Resources: Copper
Location: Utah, USA
Development started in 1904

Visible from space and also known as Kennecott, the Bingham Canyon copper mine is the deepest mine in the world. The pioneers of the mine were the Mormons - discovering it in the middle of the 19th century, at that time the deposit was 1.2 km deep, 2.5 miles wide and covered an area of ​​​​more than 7.7 km 2. Surprisingly, despite the fact that the quarry is being developed since 1904, production at the field is expected to be carried out until 2030.

Calgory Super Pete

Owner: Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines
Resources: Gold
Location: Calgory, Australia
Development started in 1989.

The Femiston Open Pit gold mine is the largest gold mine in the world and is commonly referred to as the Super Pit. The elongated section is located in the west of Australia, reaches a length of 3.5 km, a width of 1.5 km and a depth of more than 320 meters. Super Pete produces over 850,000 ounces of gold per year.

Hal-Rast-Mahoning Quarry

Owner: Hibbing Taconite
Resources: Iron ore
Location: Minnesota, USA
Development started in 1893

The Mahoning quarry began to be developed as an underground mine, but the iron ore was too close to the surface and the development had to be carried out in an open way. Now the Mahoning quarry reaches 8 km in length, 3.2 km in width and 180 meters in depth. During the development of the deposit, it was decided to combine several smaller workings into one large open pit. For such a "merger" it was necessary to move the city of Hibbing, located in the immediate vicinity of the quarries. The transfer of the city took 2 years and 16 million dollars, during which time almost 200 residential buildings and 20 office buildings were transferred. At its peak, between World War I and World War II, the mine produced 14 iron ore manufactured in the USA. Today, almost 100 years later, Hibbing Taconite still uses Mahoning for mining.

Tokepala

Owner: Southern Copper Corporation
Resources: Copper
Location: Tacna, Peru
Development started in 1960

The Andes are home to several of the world's largest mines. Tokepala reaches 700 meters in depth, and the diameter of the diameter reaches more than 2.5 km. Looking at a NASA satellite photo, you can see the giant mountain dumps that have formed artificial mountains along the northern part of the mine.

Diamond pipe "Ekati"

Owner: BHP Billiton
Resources: Diamonds
Location: Northwest Canada
Development started in 1998

Ekati is located 300 km from Yellowknife, and was discovered during the gold rush. After the project opened in 1985, lands from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Circle were resold as geological lottery tickets. Scientific discovery proving that kimberlite pipes are a sign of a diamond deposit made Ekati another Jack then in this lottery.

Kimberley Quarry

Owner: Da Beers
Resources: diamonds
Location: Kimberley, South Africa
Development started in 1871

The name - Giant Hole - that's what really gives fantasy run wild. The section with a depth of 240 meters is the largest development in the world where mining was carried out by hand. The deposit was originally owned by the Da Beer brothers who led to a patent battle with Khal-Rast-Mahoning.

After 16 years of excavation under extremely harsh conditions, the small quarries located in the region came to the decision to create a conglomerate, and to unite all workings in one company, Da Beers Consolidated Mines Limited. Idle in an abandoned state for over 100 years, the mine has been turned into a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Grasberg Quarry

Owner: Freeport-McMoRan
Resources: copper, gold
Location: Papua, Indonesia
Development started in 1990

The Grasberg deposit is the largest gold mine in the world and the third largest copper mine. Grasberg's turbulent past includes dozens of expeditions, rebel attacks, and $55 million in over-budget construction.
In the 1930s, a Dutch scientific expedition set out to explore one of the highest peaks in the Dutch East Indies. The report of the expedition reported on the discovery of gold and copper reserves, which later became the Ertsberg Quarry. Due to the inaccessibility - the field is located in a mountain range at an altitude of more than 4100 meters above sea level - the construction costs were estimated at $175 million; the project involved the construction of 116 km of roads, an airstrip, a power plant and a port. In 1977, a group of rebels attacked the mine and staged a diversion by planting explosives on the railway line of the mine.

10 years after the attack, Freeport concluded that the mine was depleted and began to explore the vicinity of the field in the hope of smaller associated deposits. The company hit the jackpot at the Grasberg deposit, located 3 km from Ertsberg, with maximum copper reserves of $40 billion. In the aerial photographs below you can see what Grasberg looks like now. And although Estberg began to be developed in the 30s and about $ 175 million was invested in it, it is too small to be seen.

Chuquicamata

Owner: CODELCO
Resources:: copper, gold
Location: Chile
Development started in 1882

If we talk about volumes, then you will not find more production than the Chilean Chuquicamata. Moving to the state property after the Chilean nationalization of 1970, the working reached 4.3 km long, 3 km wide and almost 900 meters deep.

For a brief period, Chuquicamata held the largest volume of annual production. Prior to merging with the Escondida quarry in 2002, the quarry operated the largest smelter and the largest electrolytic refinery in the world. It is obvious that the territory in the mine area was used for many hundreds of centuries, 17 years after the start of work, a “copper man” dating back to 500 BC was discovered in a littered temporary working.

Escondida

Owner: Minera Escondida
Resources: Copper
Location: Atacama Desert, Chile
Development started in 1990

Escondida produces more copper than any other open pit in the world. In 2007, Minera Escondida produced over 1.5 million tons of copper worth over $20 billion. The construction of the quarry began after studies showed a high probability of the existence of a copper belt in the region, just 300 km from the Chuquikamato quarry.

Berkeley Pete

Owner: Atlantic Richfield Company
Resources: copper, silver, gold
Location: Montana, USA
Development started in 1955

The development of the mine was stopped 30 years ago. Since then, without water pumps to keep the quarry open, the 540 meter pit has filled with rainwater. Despite the fact that from above the water seems crystal clear, in fact, it boils a real soup of heavy metals and dangerous chemical elements- such as arsenic, sulphuric acid and cadmium In fact, the water in the quarry is so saturated with minerals that Montana Resources extracts 180 thousand tons of copper per month by pumping water into the surrounding ponds.

The mine was opened in 1955, production was in the region of 1 billion tons of the resource and subsequently grew so much that the owner of the Anaconda mine bought a neighboring city to continue the expansion.

Yuba Goldfields

Owner: Western Aggregate
Resources: Aggregated
Location: California, USA.
Development started in 1848

Yuba Goldfrieds is located along the Yuba River in California. The deposit was formalized during the gold rush in 1848-55. Being in the river bed, the mine was in its infancy, but as soon as the rumor about the prospects of the region spread, large mining companies began to actively invest in projects in the region. To minimize production, companies began to open mines using the pressure of water jets in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Soon so much waste and debris was dumped into the river that the river bed rose 100 feet and in some areas destroyed and flooded settlements in the river area.

The area has now exhausted its gold reserves and although it is still being used for the extraction of concrete constituents, it is planned to turn it into a nature reserve. Yuba Goldfrieds are known for their unusual appearance, when looking at aerial photography you can see how mountains, streams, and pits created by years of mining - like a gut, stretched along the riverbed.

Diamond pipe "Successful"

Owner: ALROSA
Resources: Diamonds
Location: Republic of Sakha, Russia
Development started in 1988

The depth of "Udachnaya" reaches more than 600 meters, although it is not as wide as the "Mir". Discovered a little later than Mir, Udachnaya is so remote from civilization that a small city of its own was built for the project for the mine workers, named after the deposit. Since 2010, Alrosa has changed the type of mining at the mine to underground, as open pit mining has become no longer profitable.

Olympic Dam

Owner: BHP Billiton
Resources: copper, gold, silver, uranium
Location: South Australia
Development started in 1988.

Although BHP Billiton's underground mine has plans to expand to become the world's largest open pit, it has already stretched far from what was once Roxby Downs Ships station. Imagine that this is a deposit - tons of copper, uranium, gold and silver.

Olympic Dam has the fourth largest copper reserve in the world and is the world's largest uranium deposit. Even without expanding the area of ​​the quarry, Olympic Dam consumes 35 million liters of water daily.

Among the amazing natural phenomena, one can certainly include holes periodically opening up in different places on the globe.

1. Kimberlite pipe "Mir" (Mir diamond pipe), Yakutia.

The Mir kimberlite pipe is a quarry located in the city of Mirny, Yakutia. The quarry has a depth of 525 m and a diameter of 1.2 km and is one of the largest quarries in the world. Mining of diamondiferous kimberlite ore was stopped in June 2001. Currently, an underground mine of the same name is being built on board the quarry to develop the remaining under-quarry reserves, the extraction of which by open pit is unprofitable.

The world's largest diamond quarry is amazing.

2.Kimberlite pipe "Big hole", South Africa.

Big Hole - a huge inactive diamond mine in the city of Kimberley (South Africa). It is believed that this is the largest quarry developed by people without the use of technology. It is currently the main attraction of the city of Kimberley.

Between 1866 and 1914, about 50,000 miners dug the shaft with picks and shovels, producing 2,722 tons of diamonds (14.5 million carats) in the process. During the development of the quarry, 22.5 million tons of soil were extracted. It was here that such famous diamonds as "De Beers" (428.5 carats), bluish-white "Porter Rhodes" (150 carats), orange-yellow " Tiffany" (128.5 carats). At present, this diamond deposit has been exhausted. The area of ​​the "Big Hole" is 17 hectares. Its diameter is 1.6 km. The hole was dug to a depth of 240 meters, but then was filled with waste rock to a depth of 215 meters, currently the bottom of the hole is filled with water, its depth is 40 meters.

At the site of the mine earlier (about 70 - 130 million years ago) there was a volcano mouth. Almost a hundred years ago - in 1914, the development in the "Big Hole" was stopped, but the gaping mouth of the pipe remains to this day and now serves only as a bait for tourists, acting as a museum. And…begins to create problems. In particular, there was a serious danger of collapse not only of its edges, but also of the roads laid in its immediate vicinity. The South African road authorities have long banned the passage of heavy goods vehicles in these places, and now they strongly recommend that all other drivers avoid driving along Bultfontein Road in the Big Hole area. The authorities are going to completely block the dangerous section of the road. And the largest diamond company in the world, De Beers, which has owned this mine since 1888, did not find anything better than to get rid of it by putting it up for sale.

3. Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah.

The largest active quarry in the world - the development of copper began in 1863 and is still going on. About a kilometer deep and three and a half kilometers wide.

It is the world's largest anthropogenic formation (dug out by man). It is an open pit mine.

As of 2008, it measures 0.75 miles (1.2 km) deep, 2.5 miles (4 km) wide and covers an area of ​​1,900 acres (7.7 sq km).

The ore was first discovered in 1850, and quarrying began in 1863, which continues to this day.

Currently, the quarry employs 1,400 people who extract 450,000 tons (408 thousand tons) of rock daily. The ore is loaded onto 64 large dump trucks capable of hauling 231 tons of ore, these trucks cost about US$3 million each.

4. Quarry "Dyavik" (Diavik), Canada. Diamonds are mined.

The Canadian quarry "Diavik" is perhaps one of the youngest (by development) diamond kimberlite pipes. It was first explored only in 1992, the infrastructure was created by 2001, and diamond mining began in January 2003. Presumably, the mine will last from 16 to 22 years.
The place of its exit to the surface of the earth is unique in itself. Firstly, this is not one, but three pipes at once, formed on the island of Las de Gras, about 220 km south of the Arctic Circle, off the coast of Canada. Since the hole is huge, and the island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is small, only 20 km²

and in a short time the Diavik diamond mine became one of the most important components of the Canadian economy. Up to 8 million carats (1600 kg) of diamonds are mined from this deposit annually. An airfield has been built on one of its neighboring islands, capable of receiving even huge Boeings. In June 2007, a consortium of seven mining companies announced their intention to sponsor environmental studies and begin construction on Canada's North Shore of a major port to receive cargo ships up to 25,000 tons, as well as a 211 km access road that would connect the port to the consortium's plants. . And this means that the hole in the ocean will grow and deepen.

5. Great Blue Hole, Belize.

The world-famous Great Blue Hole (“Great Blue Hole”) is the main attraction of the picturesque, ecologically perfectly clean Belize (formerly British Honduras) - a state in Central America, on the Yucatan Peninsula. No, this time it's not a kimberlite pipe. Not diamonds are “mined” from it, but tourists - diving enthusiasts from all over the world, thanks to which it feeds the country no worse than a diamond pipe. Probably, it would be better to call it not the “Blue Hole”, but the “Blue Dream”, since this can only be seen in dreams or in a dream. This is a true masterpiece, a miracle of nature - a perfectly round, twilight blue spot in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, surrounded by the lace front of the Lighthouse Reef atol.

View from space!

Width 400 meters, depth 145 - 160 meters.

As if floating above the abyss ...

6. Drainage hole in the reservoir of the Monticello dam.

A large man-made hole is located in Northern California, USA. But it's not just a hole. The drain hole in the reservoir of the Monticello Dam is the largest spillway in the world! It was built about 55 years ago. This funnel-shaped exit is simply indispensable here. It allows you to quickly dump excess water from the tank when its level exceeds the allowable rate. A kind of safety valve.

Visually, the funnel looks like a giant concrete pipe. It is capable of passing through itself in a second as much as 1370 cubic meters. m of water! The depth of such a hole is about 21 m. From top to bottom, it has the shape of a cone, the diameter of which at the top reaches almost 22 m, and narrows down to 9 m and exits from the other side of the dam, removing excess water when the reservoir overflows. The distance from the pipe to the exit point, which is located slightly to the south, is approximately 700 feet (about 200 m).

7. Karst failure in Guatemala.

A giant funnel 150 meters deep and 20 meters in diameter. Caused by groundwater and rain. During the formation of the failure, several people died and about a dozen houses were destroyed. According to local residents, from about the beginning of February, ground movements were felt in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe future tragedy, and a muffled rumble was heard from under the ground.

Open way. In relation to a career, the term "cut" is used.

Open pit mining has been known since the Paleolithic era. The first major quarries appeared in connection with the construction in Ancient Egypt pyramids; later in the ancient world, marble was mined on a large scale in quarries. The expansion of the scope of open pit mining was held back until the beginning of the 20th century by the lack of productive machines for excavating and moving large volumes of overburden. In the early 80s, 95% of building rocks, about 70% of ores, 90% and 20% of hard coals were mined in the world through quarries. The scale of extraction in quarries reaches tens of million tons per year (table).

Transport links in quarries are provided by permanent or sliding exits, and with the surface - trenches. During operation, the working ledges move, as a result of which the worked-out space increases. Overburden operations move overburden to dumps, sometimes placed in a goaf, mining operations extract and move minerals to an industrial site for primary processing or for shipment to the consumer. This is how the main cargo flows in quarries are formed, which largely determine its appearance and technological features.

With a quarry depth of up to 100 m with strong enclosing rocks in the cost of 1 m 3 of overburden, up to 25-30% is occupied by drilling and blasting, 12-16% -, 35-40% - transport and 10-15% - dumping; with an increase in the depth of open pits, the share of transport costs increases to 60-70%. Modern quarries are highly mechanized enterprises equipped with productive machines and mechanisms for crushing, excavating, transporting and storing rocks. In relation to large quarries, powerful mining and transport equipment is decisive. For drilling blast holes, heavy drilling rigs (cone rollers with the removal of drilling fines with compressed air) weighing up to 100-130 tons, developing a force on the bit of 60-70 tf (hole diameter up to 300-450 mm), light drilling rigs are used. The main type of explosives are granular ammonium nitrate granulites (non-trotyl of the simplest composition), grammonites (a mixture of saltpeter with TNT) and water-filled (in flooded wells). Mechanical loosening is carried out by rippers, the power of which has reached 735 kW, and the mass is 130 tons. Electric excavators with a cable drive and a bucket with a capacity of 15-30 m 3 with an boom length of up to 26 m are the main excavation and loading equipment for the extraction of coal and ore. At the same time, hydraulic direct meshlopats with buckets with a capacity of 10-38 m 3 are widely distributed. Improved single-bucket loaders of various models with buckets with a capacity of 4-20 m 3 , weighing from 25 to 180 tons and drive power from 184 to 1040 kW; the main part of the models is with articulated frames that rotate by 35-45 °. More and more powerful shovelers and draglines are being introduced at overburden operations (overburden shovel weighing 12 thousand tons with a bucket with a capacity of 135 m 3 with a drive power of 22 thousand kW and a dragline with a mass of 12 thousand tons with a bucket with a capacity of 168 m 3 with a boom length of 92 m are used).

Automated systems for long-term, current and operational planning of mining operations in quarries have been created for all technological processes, including the reclamation of lands disturbed by open-pit mining. Computers are used to determine the final boundaries and productivity of quarries. The data of occurrence conditions, information on the thickness of overburden, other geological factors, economic indicators (planned productivity of a quarry, capital investments, cost data), environmental protection requirements are put into the computer system.

Due to the large scale of mining and the depth of the quarry, they change the circulation of air masses (cold air "flows" into the quarry), creating a special microclimate (see Ventilation of quarries).

Career. What is a quarry. What are careers? Photo of quarries.

Career(incision) - a set of excavations in the earth's crust, formed during the extraction of minerals in an open way; open pit mining enterprise.
In a broad sense, a quarry is a huge dug in earth's surface well. Quarries are formed when rock is taken out of the earth in huge or fragmented pieces, and they are different.

The principle of open mining is that the thicker layers of waste rocks located on top that cover the mineral are divided into horizontal layers within the mining allotment, which are taken out sequentially in the direction from top to bottom, ahead of the lower layers by the upper ones. The height of the ledge depends on the strength of the rocks and the equipment used, and ranges from several meters to several tens of meters.

The bottom of the quarry is the platform of the lower ledge of the quarry (which is also called the bottom of the quarry). In the conditions of development of steep and inclined bodies minerals, the minimum dimensions of the quarry bottom are determined taking into account the conditions for safe removal and loading of rocks from the last ledge: in width - not less than 20 m, in length - not less than 50-100 m.

In the conditions of development of morphologically complex deposits of significant stretching, the bottom of the quarry may have a stepped shape.

The depth of a quarry is the vertical distance between the level of the earth's surface and the bottom of the quarry, or the distance from the top contour of the quarry to the bottom. Distinguish design, final and maximum depth of a quarry.

A quarry is a system of ledges (as a rule, the upper ones are rock or overburden, the lower ones are mining), which are constantly moving, ensuring the excavation of the rock mass in the contours of the quarry field.

Explosions

One of the ways to extract rock in a quarry is an explosion. For the explosion, wells of a given depth are drilled using a drilling machine. The diameter of the wells can be different, depending on the composition of the stone. The grid of wells (distance between wells) can also be different. Wells are usually drilled in advance and then covered with bags so that water or small stones do not get in before work begins. The components are laid out: a bag of explosives and a detonator. Then the detonators are connected and lowered down. The cable is tied so that it “does not go” down.

The well is loaded with explosives. In the course of work, measure the level explosive in the well.

After the charge, a stemming (plug) is performed in the well from the rock that remains after drilling the well.
The stemming is needed to block the explosion products so that they do not “fly out” upwards from the well, and so that the explosion goes along the shortest path not up, but to the side.

Finish work, connect the wires into a garland. Check the circuit for breaks.

A warning signal is given before the explosion. All equipment is removed from the quarry to a safe distance from the point of explosion, people hide in a shelter, and an explosion occurs. After the explosion, a signal is given to end the blasting.

Types of quarries

Careers are:

• diamond;
• copper;
• coal and others.

Quarry products

Granite quarries are mined and produced, screening out granite, rubble stone.

In quartzite quarries: quartzite crushed stone, quartzite screenings.

On sand quarries: construction, ravine sand, quarry sand.

On limestone quarries: limestone crushed stone, limestone flour, crushed gypsum stone.

On andesite quarries: andesite, rubble stone, finely chipped rubble stone.

At the marble quarry: marble chips, marble sand, marble flour, rubble stone.

On block quarries: granite blocks, granite slabs, gabbro blocks, paving stones.

On perlite quarries: crushed perlite, sand, perlite stone, expanded perlite.

On zeolite quarries: zeolite crushed stone, natural crushed zeolite.

Videos of granite quarry