April 24, 2008

• 8 Amazing Holes! (give pictures time to load)

  8 Amazing Holes! These holes are not only amazing, but some of them are really terrifying - especially #8! The sheer scale of these holes reminds you of just how tiny you are. 1. Kimberley Big Hole - South Africa Apparently the largest ever hand-dug excavation in the world, this 1097 meter deep mine yielded over 3 tons of diamonds before being closed in 1914. The amount of earth removed by workers is estimated to total 22.5 million tons. 2. Glory Hole - Monticello Dam, California A glory hole is used when a dam is at full capacity and water needs to be drained from the reservoir.     This is the 'Glory Hole' at Monticello dam, and it's the largest in the world of this type of spillway, its size enabling it to consume 14,400 cubic feet of water every second. The hole can be seen at the top left of the photo above. If you were to jump in for some reason, your body would shoot out near the bottom of the dam (below). There is one person known to have had this experience. She did not live to tell of it. 3. Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah This is supposedly the largest man-made excavation on earth. Extraction began in 1863 and still continues today, the pit increasing in size constantly. In its current state the hole is ¾ miles deep and 2.5 miles wide.   4. Great Blue Hole , Belize This incredible geographical phenomenon known as a blue hole is situated 60 miles off the mainland of Belize . There are numerous blue holes around the world, but none as stunning as this one. At surface level the near perfectly circular hole is ¼ mile wide, and the depth in the middle reaches 145 meters. Obviously the hole is a huge hit with divers.

   

  5. Mirny Diamond Mine , Serbia I'm pretty sure most people have seen this one. It's an absolute beast and holds the title of largest open diamond mines in the world. At 525 meters deep, with a top diameter of 1200 meters, there's even a no-fly zone above the hole due to a few helicopters having been sucked in.   The red arrow in the photo above is pointing to a huge truck. 6. Diavik Mine, Canada This incredible mine can be found 300km northeast of Yellowknife in Canada .   The mine is so huge and the area so remote that it has its own airport with a runway large enough to accommodate a Boeing 737. It looks equally cool when the surrounding water is frozen.     7. Sinkhole in Guatemala A sinkhole is caused when water, usually rainwater or sewage, is soaked up by the earth on a large scale, resulting in the ground collapsing the surface.   These photos are of a sinkhole that occurred early this year in Guatemala . The hole swallowed a dozen homes and killed at least 3 people.   Officials blamed the monster of a hole on a ruptured sewage pipe. And the really terrifying one?

  This is the famous 'Rat Hole' that you have heard about.

  It is capable of swallowing trillions and trillions of U.S.

  dollars... Annually! Never to be heard from again.

  It makes me tremble & shiver!

   

  • 1:39 pm
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