Have Some Open Pit Fun

Giant excavators, rock handlers, conveyors, explosions and a lot more enjoyment in a limestone open pit.

The open pit makes 15% of the country’s extracted fluxing limestone.

The dimensions impress – area of 1500×500 meters and depth of 50 meters. One can easily place 10 soccer fields or build a Formula 1 track.

According to geologists the reserves of limestone will suffice for 30 years more.

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and/or aragonite. The remains of paleozoic period are often found in the rock.

Bulldozer remove the upper ground layer which gets loaded on the rock handlers for further soil recultivation.

Rock cutoff.

Drilling-and-blasting operations is the most spectacular part of the extraction process.

Well borers can make a 24-meter well which corresponds to a 7-storey building.

Courageous drill-operator.

One needs special transport to deliver industrial exposives as well as a heap of permissions and armed escort.

TNT sticks are used as detonators.

About 30 holes are bored to make one explosion.

Blasting is a very important process, the open pit is surrounded and security guards are posted.

The holes are never blown up simultaneously – it may cause an earthquake.

Power shovel loads the rock into a rock handler “Belaz”.

Such scoop weighs16 tons.

Sometimes the equipment breaks down and gets fixed on-site.

Written off veteran.

Used up open pit areas are filled with limestone siftings.

Then the ground gets ploughed up and the recultivated site will be ready for agricultural purposes in several years.

12 rock handlers work here on a daily basis.

They work round-the-clock in three shifts.

A “Belaz” can carry 55 tons – more than it weighs itself.

If something falls out of the rock handler, a special bulldozer take it back to the excavating site.

Fighting with dust.

The open pit roads are perfect, one can easily ride a car here.

Rock handler service shop.

Weighting the load.

Receiving bunker.

The first section of the processing plant – crushing shop.

About 15 000 tons of rock goes along the conveyor belt in 24 hours.

One could easily place a 5-storey building here.

Fine limpstone gets loaded into dumpcars.

Sorting and load section.

One car carries 69 tons of crushed stone.

Trucks are waiting for loading.

Excavators work with illumination at night.

The open pit at night is amazing.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Source - englishrussia