Open-pit mining

Machinery is minuscule compared to the size of this mine.
Rock blasting at the large open-pit Twin Creeks gold mine in Nevada, United States. Note the size of the excavators for scale (foreground, left), and that the bottom of the mine is not visible.
The giant bucket-wheel excavators in the German Rhineland coal mines are among the world's biggest land vehicles.

Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth.

Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or rocks are found near the surface where the overburden is relatively thin. In contrast, deeper mineral deposits can be reached using underground mining.

Kittilä Gold Mine in Kittilä, Finland is the largest primary gold producer in Europe.

This form of mining carries several risks to the health and safety of miners, and can have a significant negative impact on the environment.

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