Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth using a pit, sometimes known as a borrow pit.
Rock blasting at the large open-pit Twin Creeks gold mine in Nevada, United States. Note the size of the excavators for scale (foreground, left), and that the bottom of the mine is not visible.
The giant bucket-wheel excavators in the German Rhineland coal mines are among the world's biggest land vehicles.
Kittilä Gold Mine in Kittilä, Finland is the largest primary gold producer in Europe.
Note the angled and stepped sides of the Sunrise Dam Gold Mine, Australia.
Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which the overlying rock is left in place, and the mineral is removed through shafts or tunnels.
The Siilinjärvi carbonatite complex, an open-pit mine owned by Yara International, in Siilinjärvi, Finland
Coal strip mine in Wyoming
The Bagger 288 is a bucket-wheel excavator used in strip mining.
Strip mining at Garzweiler surface mine in Germany. The lignite being extracted is at left, the removed overburden being placed at right. Note that it is a largely flat mine for a horizontal mineral.
