Deepest Mines
- The deepest mines in the world are the TauTona (Western Deep Levels) and Savuka gold mines in the Witwatersrand region of South Africa, which are currently working at depths exceeding 3,900 m (12,800 ft). There are plans to extend Mponeng mine, a sister mine to TauTona, down to 4,500 m (14,800 ft) in the coming years.
- The deepest hard rock mine in North America is Agnico-Eagle's LaRonde mine, which mines gold, zinc, copper and silver ores roughly 45 km (28 mi) east of Rouyn-Noranda in Cadillac, Quebec. LaRonde's Penna shaft (#3 shaft) is believed to be the deepest single lift shaft in the Western Hemisphere. The new #4 shaft bottoms out at over 3,000 m (9,800 ft) down. Their LaRonde mine expansion sees open stopes down to a depth of over 3,000 m (9,800 ft), the deepest longhole open stopes in the world.
- The deepest hard rock mines in Australia are the copper and zinc lead mines in Mount Isa, Queensland at 1,800 m (5,900 ft).
- The deepest platinum-palladium mines in the world are on the Merensky Reef, in South Africa, with a resource of 203 million Troy ounces, currently worked to approximately 2,200 m (7,200 ft) depth.
- The harshest conditions for hard rock mining are in the Witwatersrand area of South Africa, where workers toil in temperatures of up to 45 °C (113 °F). However, massive refrigeration plants are used to bring the air temperature down to around 28 °C (82 °F).
Read more about this topic: Underground Mining (hard Rock)
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“The humblest observer who goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of a lottery; the gold thus obtained is not the same thing with the wages of honest toil. But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he has seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another lottery, where the fact is not so obvious.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)