Just Another Giant Hole...
Joshua Foer is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Joshua is a freelance science journalist and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Dylan Thuras.
Speaking of giant holes in the ground, let me pass along one more that happens to be one of today's featured places on the Atlas Obscura home page. The Mirny diamond mine in Siberia is the biggest man-made ditch in the world:
The largest man-made hole in the world is a diamond mine located on the outskirts of Mirny, a small town in eastern Siberia. Begun in 1955, the pit is now 525 meters deep and 1.25 kilometers across. The massive 20-foot tall rock-hauling trucks that service the mine travel along a road that spirals down from the lip of the hole to its basin. Round-trip travel time: two hours. Airspace above the mine is off-limits to helicopters, after "a few accidents when they were 'sucked in' by downward air flow..."
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Looks like the Kennecott copper mine in Utah, world's largest man-made excavation!
"Located 28 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, the mine is 2 3/4-miles across and 3/4-mile deep. It is so big that it can be seen from outer space."
http://away.com/gifs/states/ak/kennecott1.jpg
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=kennecott+mine&ie=UTF8&ll=40.536895,-112.102776&spn=0.073449,0.154495&t=h&z=13
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/140/326396069_07c45cf0af_o.jpg
-L
Mirny doesn't have the world's largest man-made hole. Not even close. Utah's Kennecott Copper mine is 2 3/4-miles across and 3/4-mile deep.
See? http://www.utah.com/attractions/kennecott.htm
I'm not sure that is true. I believe the Kennecott Copper mine in Utah, USA may be the biggest in the world. Check this out:
* Kennecott's Bingham Canyon Mine has produced more copper than any mine in history - about 18.1 million tons.
* The mine is 2-3/4 miles across at the top and 3/4 of a mile deep. You could stack two Sears Towers (now known as the Willis Building) on top of each other and still not reach the top of the mine.
* The mine is so big, it can be seen by the space shuttle astronauts as they pass over the United States.
* By 2015, the mine will be at least 500 feet deeper than it is now.
* If you stretched out all the roads in the open pit mine, you'd have 500 miles of roadway - enough to reach from Salt Lake City to Denver.
Deep:
(3/4) miles = 3960 feet
3960 feet = 1.207008 kilometers
1.207008 kilometers = 1207.008 meters
Wide:
2-3/4 miles = 14520 feet
14 520 feet = 4.425696 kilometers
4.425696 kilometers = 4425.696 meters
I trying hard to understand how this is a bigger man made hole than the Bingham Canyon Mine which is 4 km wide and 1.2 km deep:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingham_Canyon_Mine
I'm sure there are plenty of other holes bigger than this one.
Helicopters sucked in by downward air flow? Air doesn't just flow down into holes and then disappear. This dubious claim sounds like a cover excuse for the authorities not wanting anyone around who might threaten their diamond cache. I wouldn't be surprised if a few bullets had also been sucked into the helicopters by that mysterious air flow.
I would love to perform a science experiment to calculate the gravitational force at the surface of the mine, and again at the greatest depths of the mine. I'm curious to see how much, if any, measurable difference in the gravitational pull there would be between the two locations......oops...my inner geek is showing!
What about the Bingham copper mine in Salt Lake City, Utah? Granted it started out as a mountain rather than flat ground, but if you look inside you'll see the mountain is now a hollow shell. Wikipedia says the mine is 1200 meters deep and 4 kilometers wide.
The chuquicamata copper mine in Chile is deeper (1250m) and larger (8,000,000 meters squared surface area).
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuquicamata
#1: Those pictures are of the Kennecott Copper mine in Alaska.
@ #5
I have a feeling the term "sucked in" might be a bit overstated. There would probably be a downdraft though, maybe caused either by cooling of the air in the hole, or maybe by aerodynamic effects from the hole's shape.
Or it could be a monster.
what about the man made hole the economy is in?
I spent a week or two in a mine something like that in Bisbee, AZ on the crew of a movie back in '97 - it's hard to appreciate the scale unless you are in it.
All you who posted deeper mines: {{sofixit}}. It is a wiki, after all...
@#9
The mines look alike, but if you do a bit of digging (ouch) you will see that is definitely a picture of Mirny. P.S. Thanks @13!
While not the largest in terms of volume removed, here's the deepest man-made hole: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole
I assume the world's largest man-made hill is somewhere nearby?
It's a sarlacc. Maybe a mother sarlacc, from the size of it.
Even among urban pits, the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana, beats the Siberians:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_697.html
As for the helicopters, maybe they got caught in what we around here call the "Butte Vortex."
@FRANKIEBOY:
You mean The National Money Hole?
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_should_the_government
Chuquicamata copper mine is about 1 kilometre in depth and there's a project to extend its depth with subterranean tunnels!
@Danequin,
leave it to The Onion. Thanks, that's a riot.
Wow, thanks for the fact check. Kennecott does seem to be deeper. We've got to get that place in the Atlas Obscura!
I will be the third one to mention this:
check CHUQUICAMATA in Chile.
this thing reminds me of dante's inferno
http://www.italica.rai.it/immagini/arte/botticelli/imbuto.jpg
How about the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana that is filling with red water!
Check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pit
I don't know what you guys are talking about. Helicopters get sucked into downward flow all the time. For example, nobody can fly over the grand canyon, death valley, or the entire state of Missouri (at least not until they installed the "air straightener" that's thinly veiled as the gateway to the west), because of this mystical phenomenon.