From gigantic diamond mines you can see from space to drilling to the center of the Earth,
here are 7 of the biggest holes ever made by humans!
7.
Diavik Diamond Mine This diamond mine, located in Canada’s remote
Northwest Territories is actually a pretty recent hole!
Work only began on this thing in 2003, and it is one of the world’s preeminent sources
of gem diamonds.
Since mining operations began, it has produced over 100 million carats of diamonds!!
Here's the catch though, you can't drive there, or take a train or boat.
You have to fly into the mine to get there.
And once you are there, your way of getting around is pretty restricted.
There's a road in the area that connects the mine to a building, and it's just wide enough
for a truck.
And even then, if the weather gets bad, the road is toast.
The only solution are ice roads for about 2 months a year that lead from the massive
hole to the Diavik Airport, and just the slightest change in weather can leave the miners stranded.
In the summer the mine is on an island in a lake, but then later the mine is surrounded
by endless, white desert.
All mining takes place underground and it gets over 3000 pounds of diamonds out of the
Earth every year.
It is expected to close in 2024.
6.
Berkeley Pit Located in Butte, Montana, this copper mine
is now filled with heavily acidic water.
Opened in 1955, this mine was used to get copper out of the Earth.
Ironically it closed on Earth day in 1982.
In the 80’s Berkeley Pit was 1700 feet deep and 900 feet wide.
Approximately 320 million tons of ore and over 700 million tons of waste rock were mined
from the pit.
The pit had a good turnout before being shut down.
After that, things took a turn for the worst.
With nothing stopping the water from getting into the pit, the hole is now a huge lake.
While that's not bad per se, when you mix water with man-made chemicals and toxic waste
from the former mine, you get water that's highly acidic- which is pretty terrible for
the environment.
VERY BAD.
In fact, in the 90's, a flock of snow geese decided to go into the pit to cool down.
All 342 of them were killed by the water.
Now you can go to pay to see toxic water for 2 dollars.
The pit is now half a mile wide, and 1780 feet deep.
If you were to drink from the water, you would be swallowing copper, iron, arsenic, cadmium,
zinc, and sulfuric acid.
And you would die.
The pit is rising and could contaminate the water for more than 30,000 people.
And now for number 5, but first can you guess what the largest man made hole in the world
is???
Let us know in the comments below!
The answer is coming up!!
And if you are new here, be sure to subscribe before you leave, we have lots of new videos
coming up!! 5.
Mir Mine This is a diamond mine, and one of the largest
excavations in history.
This mine in Russia is the 2nd largest man made hole in the world.
Located in outside of Mirny, a small town in Eastern Siberia, this place is 1,722 feet
(525 meters) deep, and 3,900 feet (1.25 kilometers) across.
The mine itself was built by the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin in 1955.
Explosives were used to get through the permafrost and during its peak years of operation, the
mine produced over 10 million carats of diamonds annually.
Today, the mine is off-limits to bystanders.
Open-pit mining has stopped, and officially they are not mining for diamonds anymore,
there is still underground mining going on...makes you wonder what they’re up to...
Mysteries aside, the Mirny Mine has been surrounded by urban legends.
One story claims that if a helicopter gets too close to the mine, the airflow from the
hole will actually suck them to the ground and make them crash.
In any case, airspace above the mine is off limits.
4.
IceCube Neutrino Observatory There are many different ways to make holes
in the Earth as you know, or will soon learn.
But for the University of Wisconsin, they wanted to do a study of the Earth from a different
perspective.
They decided to go to Antarctica and drill a massive hole into the very ice caps of the
Earth to see what's down there.
Thus, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory was made.
That may sound weird, but it's actually a viable practice.
After all, the ice of the world's polar caps hides secrets and mysteries of the world that
we can barely fathom.
From remains of ancient creatures, to actual viruses and diseases that were frozen in time,
there's a lot to discover.
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is the first detector of its kind and it covers a cubic
kilometer of ice.
The IceCube searches for massless subatomic particles called neutrinos.
There are about 300 physicists from 12 different countries working on the program.
Now, as for how they made this hole in the Antarctic, they went there during the Summer
season and used a hot water hose to melt the ice itself and dig its way down.
It's not the easiest way to make a hole, but given their location, it might be the most
clever.
It took them 7 years, but now the hole is about 8,000 feet deep!
(That's 1.5 miles give or take).
Oh, and did I mention that they did this multiple times?
They now have several holes in the Antarctic.
And as for what they do now that they have them, they've put optic cables in them so
that they can see and give information to the people at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole
Station.
There are actually 86 separate optic cables that give all kinds of information.
3.
Kimberley Diamond Mine Also known as the Big Hole, the Kimberly diamond
mine in South Africa, is home to the world’s largest diamond mine!
It is so large it is visible by space and has produced some of the world’s largest
diamonds.
This mine actually used to be a hill.
And then 50,000 workers came in with their pickaxes and started to dig, and they went
deeper and deeper until the mine looked as you see it now.
This mine started in 1866, but excavations stopped in 1914.
All man power.
And by the time it was done, the mine was 705 feet deep (215 meters), and over 1500
feet wide.Hence the name "big hole", and it's not hard to see why.
Estimates say that over 6,000 pounds of diamonds were excavated from the mine.
The mine is a popular tourist destination and you can now visit the town and see how
the poor workers and the DeBeers family lived, as well as see the machinery and hollowed
out bibles miners used to use to smuggle out diamonds.
2.
Bingham County Mine Also known as the Kennecott Copper Mine in
Utah, this mine definitely takes the cake.
This copper mine has been in use for over a century, and it's still open to this day.
It's the biggest copper mine in the world and provides about 25% of the country’s
copper needs.
Answer: For those of you who guessed, this mine is about 2.5 miles wide, and about 3/4
of a mile deep at last count, and it's likely much bigger than that.
That's why some people consider it the largest excavation in the world.
And again, it's over 100 years old.
Mining began there in 1906, and you can bet that no one digging there at that time thought
that this would become what it is today.
On a visual note, it's just stunning.
You can see the "steps" in the Earth as the miners dug deeper and deeper.
Although part of it was destroyed by a landslide, it is still being mined.
The mine is a popular tourist destination, although currently the Visitor’s Center
is closed so be sure to check before you take the trip out there!
There was some movement in the earth, so they need to relocate it and they are working on
a way to create an interactive experience for visitors.
1.
Kola Superdeep Borehole Have you ever wondered what's at the center
of the Earth?
Fact is, no one really knows which is why the Kola Superdeep Borehole is so important.
While the Bingham County Mine may be the largest manmade hole in the world, the Kola Superdeep
Borehole is the deepest hole in the world!
When you look at the entrance to the Kola Superdeep Borehole, you might not be that
impressed.
After all, it's only 9 inches wide.
But, like the saying goes, you can't judge a book by its cover.
And in this case, the "cover" of this borehole hides a 7.5 mile hole that was dug in the
1970's.
So...why was this hole even made?
Well, it was a time of political turmoil, and while the "Space Race" was capturing the
eyes of the world as we tried to set foot on the moon, another race was going on between
the United States and the Soviet Union.
Mainly, they wanted to see who could drill the deepest into the Earth.
It may have started out petty, but it became a race that would help us understand more
of what's inside of our planet.
The US did their drilling off the coast of Mexico in the Pacific Ocean, whereas The Soviet
Union decided to dig in the Kola Peninsula.
Ironically, the US side of the race had to stop in 1966.
The reason?
Lack of funding.
The Soviets kept going though, and going, and going, until they reached 7.5 miles beneath
the Earth's crust.
That’s 40,230 feet (12,262 meters).
For the record, that's deeper than the deepest ocean on the planet.
To be fair, this took a LONG time.
The Soviet drilling started in 1970, and only stopped 24 years later in 1994.
Why did they stop?
Because the extreme heat kept destroying the equipment.
Drillers reached 356 degrees Fahrenheit while they had estimated it would be 212 degrees.
At that heat the environment is practically liquid and they couldn’t maintain the hole.
All the drill bits melted and the rock layer didn’t act as scientists had expected.
That being said, the samples that were found because of the drilling are invaluable, and
have not only changed what scientists know about the Earth's core, but also seismic activity
and mapping.
You can still see the borehole if you go to Russia, however, since 2008, it's been sealed
shut, so you won't get to peak at the inside.
Now many international teams and Oil and Gas companies are also drilling deep.
The Chikyu, a Japanese drillship, claims the record for the deepest offshore hole drilled
for scientific purposes.
They are now at about 10,000 feet (2 miles below the seafloor).
Now known as the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, they are hoping to break all previous
records and are expecting to spend around $1 billion!!
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