sauceman

I love that part of my job where travelling lets me do some tourism at the same time!

One of the awesome places in my territory is Thetford Mines. Not for it's beauty, it's pretty for a small city.

But their mining pits are deep as hell. Here are pics I've taken. Excuse-me for the poor quality, I could pose only from behind a window, as the lookout sticks out in the open above the pit.

A general view of the pit (about 30% of it actually). My guesstimate is about a quarter mile deep. This is one the largest open pit in the world.




The bottom of the pit zoomed in 10x. To the naked eye, the machinery look like matchboxes.




Finally, an idea of the depth of the pit:

Stokeless_TSX

ok and what are they mining for???

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

Damn...that's a big hole...

Did anyone else happen to catch the Mythbusters episode where they blew up a cement truck in a place similar to this pit?

That was the biggest boom I had ever heard and the damn thing just pretty much evaporated, but the whole thing was nicely contained in the mine.

dzuy

dude. that hole is big.

hopefully they can hear the tsx's horn from down there

:troutslap

Dan Martin

Very cool! I actually got to drive one of CAT's biggest dozers at a company BBQ and it was a hell of a lot of fun.

sauceman

Asbestos.

Sorry for forgetting about that detail.

Geologists have found a great deal of different minerals though.

This is a particular area where sedimentation over the Atlantic techtonic plates slid, crumpled and surfaced, partly building up the Appalachian mountain range.

dzuy, the bottom would be too far to hear anything. We don't even hear the machinery. Just the blasts.

Dan, those monsters must indeed be pretty fun to operate.

I wonder what's the 1/4 mile time for this? (actually drop it straight down the pit, and you'll have acceleration like no tomorrow )



24 cylinders, 34,500cc and 3550hp.

Top speed: 42mph.

mojo factor:

jonnerd154

what do they still use asbestos for?

JeffTSX

Wow...those are some cool pictures

Tsx536

Cool pics Sauceman

I bet it looked even more amazing in person!

matelot

Asbestos ?

Stokeless_TSX

Why are they mining for toxic stuff??

sauceman

There are still many uses for it, for example they use it as a compound in asphalt (yeah I know, WTF).

But generally, as it is more and more recognised as a potential cause for cancer, the demand is slowing, and causing the mines to slow down production or even close down.

Those mines (Quebec once had 10 out of 13 asbestos mines in Canada), with their massive strikes (the Jeffrey mines strike almost sparked a mini civil war that Duplessis had a very hard time putting out with his own "police provinciale) mainly over health issues back in the late 40s are believed to have laid down the base of what we call here the "revolution tranquille", basically the overturn of the English conservative elite to the advantage of the French liberal populace. It is one of the factors behind the whole separatist movement.

Anyways, those seemingly unoccuous pits have a LOT of history.

sauceman

Absolutely! I wish I didn't have the window, the pics would have come out a lot better..

crisco

Cool stuff!
I think you may have solved Toronto's garbage dump problem!

sauceman

You wish..