Size Matters: The Big Boys of Mining

In the world of mining, it doesn’t get much bigger than this:

The Biggest Open Cast, Hand Dug Mine in the World: The Big Hole of Kimberly, South Africa

The Big Hole of Kimberly was dug by hand, using picks and shovels. There is debate about whether the Big Hole is the biggest hand dug open cast mine in the world. Its surface area of 17 hectares (42 acres) and depth of around 200 metres (650 ft) required the excavation of around 25 million tons of earth and rock. This was achieved in 52 years between 1866 and 1914 by a workforce of up to 50,000 miners. What is beyond dispute is that The Big Hole yielded 2,720 kilograms (6000 lb) of diamonds; significantly more than the Jagersfontein mine, the other contender for the title of ‘biggest’.

Largest coal hauler: Wyoming Manufacturer

By any measure, it’s a big, big truck. The three-story-high truck, custom-built for a Wyoming mine, can haul 447 tons of coal. That’s enough coal to fill more than four and a half railroad cars. That’s enough coal to fill an average-sized house from floor to ceiling. That’s enough coal to fuel a power plant for an entire day.

Source: http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_36f64feef0c8-5084-83b8-1eb1f5702a41.html#ixzz1vrXGpn9D

Largest gold mine in the world: The Grasberg Mine

The Grasberg Mine is the largest gold mine and the third largest copper mine in the world. It is located in the province of Papua in Indonesia near Puncak Jaya, the highest mountain in Papua, and it has 19,500 employees. The mine produced 58,474.392 kilograms of gold in 2006.

Source: www.bukisa.com/ articles/218700_worlds-largest-openpit-mines

Heaviest naturally occurring element

Uranium is the heaviest of all the naturally occurring elements. Its most common isotope, uranium 238, has a nucleus containing 92 protons and 146 neutrons. It was discovered by Martin Klaproth (Germany) in 1789, who named it after the planet Uranus, which had been discovered just eight years previously. It has a density of 18.95 g/cm³ (0.04 oz/in³). In the Earth’s crust, it is roughly as abundant as tin and 40 times more abundant than silver. It has a half life of 4.47 billion years.

Source: www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/3000/heaviestnaturally- occurring-element

Largest specimen of gold ever found: The Holtermann Nugget

The Holtermann Nugget is the largest specimen of gold ever found. It was discovered in 1872 in Australia. Weighing around 286 kg and nearly 5 feet long, it contained approximately 5,000 ounces of gold.

Largest Gold Nugget Ever Found: The Welcome Stranger Nugget

The ‘Welcome Stranger’ was the largest gold nugget ever found, weighing 2315.5 troy ounces when it was discovered in Moliagul, Australia in 1869. Since there were no scales capable of weighing the nugget, it was broken into three pieces. It was found by John Deason and Richard Oates at Moliagul, Victoria, Australia on 5 February 1869. The nugget itself no longer exists as it has been smelted. It produced 2268 ozt, 10 dwt, 14 grains of gold.

World’s Largest Digging Machine: Largest earth mover in the world built by the German company, Krupp

Earth mover specifications:

• stands 311 feet tall and 705 feet long
• weighs over 45,500 tons
• cost $100 million to build.
• took five years to design and manufacture
• took five years to assemble
• requires five people to operate it
• the bucket wheel is over 70 feet in diameter with 20 buckets, each of which can hold over 530 cubic feet of material
• moves on 12 crawlers (each is 12 feet wide, 80 high and 46 feet long).
• eight crawlers in front and four at the back
• maximum speed of 1 mile in 3 hours (1/3 mile/hour).
• removes over 76, 455 cubic meters each day(100,000 large dump trucks at 40yds each).

This is currently the largest earth mover in the world. In fact, according to the company, it is the largest land moving object in the world.

Source: http://edwindwianto.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/the-largest-machine-in-theworld- the-v-cat-d8r-awsome/