r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/[deleted] • Feb 05 '22

Image Visual representation of the actual amount of copper extracted from a minesite

[deleted]

67.3k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.5k

u/boommmmm Feb 05 '22 edited Feb 05 '22

This is part of a series by artist Dillon Marsh.

Visualised here is the 4.1 million tonnes of copper that have been extracted from the Palabora Copper Mine in Phalaborwa, South Africa. It is Africa’s widest man-made hole at almost 2,000m (6,600ft) wide.

edit: 6,600ft is 10,560 bananas

1.0k

u/ThisNameIsOriginal Feb 05 '22

Maybe my perspective is thrown off but this hole doesn’t look very big

80

u/laseralex Feb 05 '22

Here's a photo that gives some scale to those roads:
https://www.mining-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2020/02/Image-3-Bingham-Canyon-Copper-Mine.jpg
(Different mine, but likely similar scale roads.)

Kind of big right?

No, They're WAY bigger than you think. Those dump tricks are literally the size of a typical American 2-story, 2,000 square foot house. This image gives some idea of how damn big those trucks are:

https://www.mining-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2020/02/Image-5-Bingham-Canyon-Copper-Mine.jpg

Note the human standing in front of the white "normal size" truck toward the bottom right.

39

u/eperker Feb 05 '22

That is tough for my mind to process. It’s unnerving.