First close-up of Pluto

More to come...

Hambach Lignite Mine

On excursion I visited the Hambach opencast mine is the largest mine operated by RWE Power AG (formerly Rheinbraun AG) for the extraction of "brown coal" or lignite. This is the lowest grade and dirtiest type of coal.

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It's about 5km by 4.5km, and around 350m depth. It is the lowest point in Europe at 293 meter below sea level. Next to the mine is the Sophienhöhe, the largest artificial hill in the world composed of excavated material.

It was a hazy day, but still one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen. I've tried to reduce the haze in the pictures. Before haze removal:

After haze removal. You can see a man for scale (next to the car) if you look at the full size:

The machines on this side of the mine are only dumping the material from the other side of the mine, that is the ~250m of useless soil that is on top of the coal. It gets transported by conveyor belts from the place where it is eaten by the Baggers:

Basically the whole mine pit slowly moves through the landscape as one side is dug and the other dumped.

Words and pictures cannot describe the vastness of this place.

The Hambach mine is part of the Rhenish (Rhineland) lignite-mining region that covers an area of some 2,500km². Three other mines operate in the area, the Garzweiler, Inden and Bergheim. Together producing about 100Mt/y of coal. Almost all coal is used for power generation, generating 10289MW. So all this could be replaced by about 10 nuclear power plants.

More information on the mining at RWE Rhineland.

Eyjafjallajökull

It's about time for some nice pictures and clips of the recent eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Some great pictures @ The Big Picture. Visible shock-waves in the eruption plume.

Nice shots and lightning.

A few live high quality webcams, example still: And finally Volcanolypse 2010! Includes news people struggling with the pronunciation.

The largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island

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Video of Bagger 228

Bagger 228 was featured on the blog before. Now you can see it in action.

Huge lanslide in Italy caught on video

You've probably already seen clips on the news, but here is more complete footage.

When exploratory drilling goes wrong

Lots of fun things can happen. You could open a door to hell which has been burning for almost 40 years now. This story was featured previously on the blog. You could hit a salt mine under a lake, thereby draining a complete lake like a bathtub, and making a canal run backwards.

wiki It is difficult to determine exactly what occurred, as all of the evidence was destroyed or washed away in the ensuing maelstrom. The now generally accepted explanation is that a miscalculation by Texaco regarding their location resulted in the drill puncturing the roof of the third level of the mine. This created an opening in the bottom of the lake, similar to removing the drain plug from a bathtub. The lake then drained into the hole, expanding the size of that hole as the soil and salt were washed into the mine by the rushing water, filling the enormous caverns left by the removal of salt over the years. The resultant whirlpool sucked in the drilling platform, eleven barges, many trees and 65 acres (260,000 m2) of the surrounding terrain. So much water drained into those caverns that the flow of the Delcambre Canal that usually empties the lake into Vermilion Bay was reversed, making the canal a temporary inlet. This backflow created, for a few days, the tallest waterfall ever in the state of Louisiana, at 164 feet (50 m), as the lake refilled with salt water from the Delcambre Canal and Vermilion Bay. The water downflowing into the mine caverns displaced air which erupted as compressed air and then later as 400-foot (120 m) geysers up through the mineshafts.

You could also cause a rock fracture leading to a mud volcano that has been erupting since 2006, oozing enough mud to fill 50 Olympic size swimming pools every day, and razing four villages and 25 factories in the process. Article and Video

Rare video of a rock slide

It is quite rare to get video of rock slides and landslides in general because they are very unpredictable.

A news article, and a picture of the aftermath. Here is older footage of a landslide in Japan

Undersea Volcano Eruption

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The Answer:

more music charts

Darvaza, Turkmenistan - Door to Hell

More pictures

wiki Darvaza underground is naturally rich in natural gas. In 1971, during a drilling, geologists accidentally found an underground cavern filled with natural gas. The ground on which the drilling rig was placed collapsed, leaving a large gaping hole exposed with a diameter of about 50-100 meters. To avoid poisonous gases coming out of the hole, it was decided to let the gases burn. As of 2008, gases in the underground cavern are still burning without interruption. Locals have named the cavern The Door to Hell.

More videos Google Maps link (it's the small red circle)

Cueva de los Cristales, Mexico

The Naica Mine of Chihuahua, Mexico, is a working mine that is known for its extraordinary crystals. Naica is a lead, zinc and silver mine in which large voids have been found, containing crystals of selenite (gypsum) as large as 4 feet in diameter and 50 feet long. The chamber holding these crystals is known as the Crystal Cave of Giants, and is approximately 1000 feet down in the limestone host rock of the mine. The crystals were formed by hydrothermal fluids emanating from the magma chambers below. The cavern was discovered while the miners were drilling through the Naica fault, which they were worried would flood the mine. The Cave of Swords is another chamber in the Naica Mine, containing similar large crystals.
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Their future will be dependent on the fate of the mine.
At the moment, access is restricted to prevent damage to the soft crystals.
And humans can only get in the caves at all because of the continuous pumping operations that keep them clear of water.
If, when Naica's ores are no longer viable, the mine is closed and the pumping is stopped, then the caves will be submerged - and the crystals will start growing again.
"I've recommended to the mining company that they try to preserve them and I would like to see Unesco get involved," explained Professor Garcia-Ruiz.
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It was hard finding high quality pictures online but I've found a few.
More pictures: 1, 2, 3

TED: Journey into the Earth ... and beyond!

Another great TED talk. Bill Stone talks about his work as a deep cave and abyss explorer and about using cave exploration technology to explore Europa, the moon of Jupiter.

Full Screen Interactive 360° panoramas

This site has a big collection of panoramas from a variety of other sites. Some of them are really impressive. You can look around in 360° and zoom in and out on most of them. Zooming in a bit really adds to the realism. It's almost as if you were there, if you have a big screen, that is.

Amazon river 'switched direction'

The world's largest river, the Amazon, once flowed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific - the opposite of its present direction, a study shows.

Sedimentary rocks in the central part of South America contain ancient mineral grains that must have come from the eastern part of the continent. Geologist Russell Mapes says this must mean that about 145-65 million years ago, the Amazon flowed east to west.

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Weird, huh?!