7 Interesting “Hole” of the World

 

1. Mir Diamond Mine – Siberia

Mir Mine (Russian: Кимберлитовая алмазная трубка "Мир"; English: kimberlite diamond pipe "Peace") is an abandoned open pit diamond mine located in Mirny, Eastern Siberia. The mine is 525 m deep and has a diameter of 1200 m. It was the first and one of the largest diamond pipes of the USSR. Mir Mine was discovered on June 13, 1955 by Soviet geologists Yuri Khabardin, Ekaterina Elagina and V.Avdeenko during the large Amakinsky Expedition in Yakut ASSR. It was operated for almost 50 years, finally closing on April 30, 2004 while in operation, Mir Mine gave out 2 million carats annually. It takes trucks close to 2 hours to drive from the bottom to the top.

Click to enlarge. Arrow shows a truck such below

Aerial View

Check out full photos in pps here.

 

2. THE BIG HOLE

The Big Hole or Kimberley Mine, originally referred to as Colesberg Kopje is an open-pit mine in Kimberley, South Africa and claimed to be the largest hole excavated by hand. The first diamonds here were found by members of the "Red Cap Party" from Colesberg, and the ensuing scramble for claims led to the place being called New Rush, later renamed Kimberley.

From mid-July 1871 to 1914 up to 50,000 miners dug the hole with picks and shovels, yielding 2,720 kilograms (6,000 lb) of diamonds. The Big Hole has a surface of 17 hectares (42 acres) and is 463 metres (1,520 ft) wide. It was excavated to a depth of 240 metres (790 ft) but then partially infilled with debris reducing its depth to about 215 metres (710 ft) since then it has accumulated water to a level 40 metres (130 ft) below the surrounding land surface, leaving 175 metres (570 ft) of the hole beneath water. The underground Kimberley Mine was mined to a depth of 1097 metres.

There is currently an effort in progress to register the Big Hole as a World Heritage Site.

 

Read : If all the diamonds recovered from the kimberley mine could be gathered togehter, they would fill three cocopans such as these.

3. Bingham Canyon Mine – Utah

The Bingham Canyon Mine is an open-pit mining operation extracting a large porphyry copper deposit southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, in the Oquirrh Mountains. It is owned by Rio Tinto Group, an international mining and exploration company headquartered in the United Kingdom. The copper operations at Bingham Canyon Mine are managed through Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation which operates the mine, a concentrator plant, a smelter, and a refinery. The mine has been in production since 1906, and has resulted in the creation of a pit over 0.75 miles (1.2 km) deep, 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, and covering 1,900 acres (7.7 km²). According to Kennecott, it is the world's largest man-made excavation.^[3] It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 under the name Bingham Canyon Open Pit Copper

 
Over its life, Bingham Canyon has proven to be one of the world's most productive mines. As of 2004, ore from the mine has yielded more than 17 million tons (15.4 Mt) of copper, 23 million ounces (715 t) of gold, 190 million ounces (5,900 t) of silver, and 850 million pounds (386 kt) of molybdenum. The gold and silver are impurities removed from the copper during refining. The value of the resources extracted from the Bingham Canyon Mine is greater than the Comstock Lode, Klondike, and California gold rush mining regions combined. Cumulatively, Bingham Canyon has produced more copper than any other mine in the USA, and is the second in the world after Chuquicamata in Chile. Mines in Chile,Indonesia, Arizona, and New Mexico now exceed Bingham Canyon's annual production rate. High molybdenum prices in 2005 made the molybdenum produced at Bingham Canyon in that year worth even more than the copper. ^[6] The value of metals produced in 2006 at Bingham Canyon was US$1.8 billion dollars.

Employing 1,400 people, 450,000 tons (408 kt) of material are removed from the mine daily. Electric shovels can carry up to 56 cubic yards (43 m³) or 98 tons (89 t) of ore in a single scoop. Ore is loaded into a fleet of 64 large dump trucks which each carry 255 tons (231 t) of ore at a time; these trucks cost about US$3 million each. There is a five mile (8 km) series of conveyors that take ore to the Copperton concentrator and flotation plant. The longest conveyor is 2.5 miles (4 km) long and passes through an existing railroad tunnel inside the mine.

4. Glory Hole – Monticello Dam

Monticello Dam was constructed between 1953 and 1957. The dam is a medium concrete-arch dam with a structural height of 304 ft (93 m) and a crest length of 1023 ft (312 m). It contains 326,000 cubic yards (249,000 m³) of concrete.

The dam impounds Putah Creek to form Lake Berryessa, the second-largest lake in California. The capacity of the reservoir is 1.602 million acre-feet (1.98 km³). Water from the reservoir is supplied mostly to the North Bay area of San Francisco.

The Monticello Dam Powerplant was built at the dam in 1983 and has three generators. The electrical power is sent mostly to the North Bay area of San Francisco.

The dam is notable for its classic, uncontrolled spillway with a rate of 48,400 cubic feet per second (1370 m³/s) and a diameter at the lip of 87 feet (22 m).

 

5. Diavik Diamond Mine – Canada

The Diavik Diamond Mine is a diamond mine in the North Slave Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada, about 300 kilometres (186 miles) north of Yellowknife.^[2] It has become an important part of the regional economy, employing 700, grossing C$100 million in sales, and producing 8 million carats (1600 kg) of diamonds annually. The area was surveyed in 1992 and construction began in 2001, with production commencing in January 2003. It is connected by an ice road and Diavik Airport with a 5,235-foot (1,596 m) gravel runway regularly accommodating Boeing 737 jet aircraft.

The mine is owned by a joint venture between the Harry Winston Diamond Corporation and Diavik Diamond Mines Inc., a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Group. The lifespan of the mine is expected to be 16 to 22 years.

The mine consists of three kimberlite pipes associated with the Lac de Gras kimberlite field and is located on an island 20 square kilometres (8 sq mi) in Lac de Gras and is informally called East Island. It is about 220 kilometres (137 mi) south of the Arctic Circle.

In 2006 the ice road from Yellowknife to the Diavik mine, and neighboring mines, froze late and thawed early.^[1] The Diavik mine was unable to truck in all the supplies needed for the rest of 2006 before the road closed and arrangements had to be made to bring the remainder of the supplies in by air.

On July 5, 2007 a consortium of seven mining companies, including Rio Tinto, announced they are sponsoring environmental impact studies to construct a deep-water port in Bathurst Inlet.^[3][4] Their plans include building a 211 km (131 mi) road connecting the port to their mines. The port would serve vessels of up to 25,000 tonnes.

The Diavik mine was featured in Ice Road Truckers, a television series on The History Channel.

 

6. Sinkhole – Guatemala

A rupture in the underground stormwater drain system opened a huge sinkhole on February 23, killing three people and bringing down twelve houses in Guatemala City.

Teenagers Irma and David Soyos and their father, 53-year old Domingo Soyos were killed when their house collapsed into the sinkhole. Nearly a thousand people were evacuated from the San Antonio neighborhood after the collapse.

Wikinews interviewed Eric Haddox, a civil engineer who has visited the site of the sinkhole and spoken to the engineers working on fixing the drain. Mr. Haddox, who specialises in the building of earthworks, roads, water supply and sewage systems, and is working as a missionary in Guatemala, visited the site following the collapse to help in the recovery effort.

Mr. Haddox told us that the size of the hole is much smaller than the 330 feet depth originally reported and that the erosion causing the collapse is believed to have happened over a long time, and not just during the recent rains as initially suspected.

There are also concerns that a four-story building less than a metre from the edge of the hole may collapse as the earth under the building continues to be eroded.

 

7. Great Blue Hole – Belize

The Great Blue Hole is a large underwater sinkhole off the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the mainland and Belize City. The hole is circular in shape, over 300 metres (984 ft) across and 125 metres (410 ft) deep.^[1] It was formed as a limestone cave system during the last glacial period when sea levels were much lower. As the ocean began to rise again, the caves flooded, and the roof collapsed.^[2] Believed to be the world’s largest feature of its kind, the Great Blue Hole is part of the larger Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, a World Heritage site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

On-shore caves of similar formation, as large collapsed sinkholes, are well known in Belize.

This site was made famous by Jacques-Yves Cousteau who declared it one of the top ten scuba diving sites in the world. In 1971, he brought his ship, the Calypso, to the hole to chart its depths.^[4] Investigations by this expedition confirmed the hole's origin as typical karst limestone formations, formed before rises in sea level in at least four stages, leaving ledges at depths of 21, 49 and 91 meters (69, 161 and 299 ft). Stalactites were retrieved from submerged caves, confirming their previous formation above sea level. Some of these stalactites were also off-vertical by 10°-13° in a consistent orientation, thus indicating that there had also been some past geological shift and tilting of the underlying plateau, followed by a long period in the current plane.

This is a popular spot amongst recreational scuba divers, who are lured by the opportunity to dive in crystal clear water and meet several species of fish, including giant groupers, nurse sharks and several types of reef sharks such as the Caribbean reef shark and the Blacktip shark. Other species of sharks, like the bull shark and hammerheads, have been reported there, but are not regular sightings. Usually, dive trips to the Great Blue Hole are full-day trips, which include one dive in the Blue Hole and two further dives in nearby reefs.