Coal mining uses large open pit mines that can span many square kilometers and employ massive pieces of equipment like draglines to extract coal resources from the earth. Open pit mining excavates coal deposits near the surface and removes overlying material, unlike underground mining which extracts deeper coal seams through tunneling. These open cast mines provide a bulk of global coal production through efficient large-scale surface mining operations.
Coal mining uses large open pit mines that can span many square kilometers and employ massive pieces of equipment like draglines to extract coal resources from the earth. Open pit mining excavates coal deposits near the surface and removes overlying material, unlike underground mining which extracts deeper coal seams through tunneling. These open cast mines provide a bulk of global coal production through efficient large-scale surface mining operations.
Coal mining uses large open pit mines that can span many square kilometers and employ massive pieces of equipment like draglines to extract coal resources from the earth. Open pit mining excavates coal deposits near the surface and removes overlying material, unlike underground mining which extracts deeper coal seams through tunneling. These open cast mines provide a bulk of global coal production through efficient large-scale surface mining operations.
Large opencast mines can cover an area of many square kilometres and use very large pieces of equipment, such as draglines (pictured here). Photograph courtesy of Anglo Coal.