page_title: Mining
section_title: Records
hierarchical_section_title: Mining / Records
caption_attribution_description: English: Coppermine Chuquicamata, Chile.
context_page_description: Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef or placer deposit. These deposits form a mineralized package that is of economic interest to the miner.
  Ores recovered by mining include metals, coal, oil shale, gemstones, limestone, chalk, dimension stone, rock salt, potash, gravel, and clay. Mining is required to obtain any material that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a laboratory or factory. Mining in a wider sense includes extraction of any non-renewable resource such as petroleum, natural gas, or even water.
  Mining of stones and metal has been a human activity since pre-historic times. Modern mining processes involve prospecting for ore bodies, analysis of the profit potential of a proposed mine, extraction of the desired materials, and final reclamation of the land after the mine is closed.
  Mining operations usually create a negative environmental impact, both during the mining activity and after the mine has closed. Hence, most of the world's nations have passed regulations to decrease the impact.
context_section_description: As of 2008, the deepest mine in the world is TauTona in Carletonville, South Africa, at 3.9 kilometres (2.4 mi), replacing the neighboring Savuka Mine in the North West Province of South Africa at 3,774 metres (12,382 ft). East Rand Mine in Boksburg, South Africa briefly held the record at 3,585 metres (11,762 ft), and the first mine declared the deepest in the world was also TauTona when it was at 3,581 metres (11,749 ft).
  The Moab Khutsong gold mine in North West Province (South Africa) has the world's longest winding steel wire rope, which is able to lower workers to 3,054 metres (10,020 ft) in one uninterrupted four-minute journey.
  The deepest mine in Europe is the 16th shaft of the uranium mines in Příbram, Czech Republic, at 1,838 metres (6,030 ft), second is Bergwerk Saar in Saarland, Germany, at 1,750 metres (5,740 ft). 
  The deepest open-pit mine in the world is Bingham Canyon Mine in Bingham Canyon, Utah, United States, at over 1,200 metres (3,900 ft). The largest and second deepest open-pit copper mine in the world is Chuquicamata in northern Chile at 900 metres (3,000 ft), which annually produces 443,000 tons of copper and 20,000 tons of molybdenum. 
  The deepest open-pit mine with respect to sea level is Tagebau Hambach in Germany, where the base of the pit is 293 metres (961 ft) below sea level.
  The largest underground mine is Kiirunavaara Mine in Kiruna, Sweden. With 450 kilometres (280 mi) of roads, 40 million tonnes of annually produced ore, and a depth of 1,270 metres (4,170 ft), it is also one of the most modern underground mines. The deepest borehole in the world is Kola Superdeep Borehole at 12,262 metres (40,230 ft), but this is connected to scientific drilling, not mining.
caption: Chuquicamata, Chile, site of the largest circumference and second deepest open pit copper mine in the world.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2005:10:02 17:15:42", "Image Artist": "Reinhard Jahn", "Image Copyright": "This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 Germany", "Image ExifOffset": "284", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "422", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5926", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2126", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1369"}