Omrie
224412
3901
52
Tweefontein Mine, Concordia – 38,747 Metric Tons
Jubilee Mine, Concordia – 6,500 Metric Tons
Marikana Mine – 136 Million Troy Ounces
Nababeep South Mine, Nababeep – 302,791 Metric Tons
Palabora Mine, Phalaborwa – 4.1 Million Metric Tons
West Rand Gold Field – 102 Million Troy Ounces
West O’okiep Mine, Okiep – 284,000 Metric Tons
The project is called For What It’s Worth, by Dillon Marsh, a South African photographer. He wanted to quantify the results of mines in a visually striking means.
EmotionallyTransparent
So they just mined it out and made weird knowledge spheres to fuck with future archeologists minds after we apocalypse and start over
AMassivelyObeseDragon
Can we get some bananas here?
littlepenguinologist
Crazy how nature do that
jeandolly
An original idea well executed and presented. Great stuff. Have my upvote dear sir!
DilligafDiva
West Rand Gold Field yielded $9,025,496,228.58 worth of gold. Wowza.
utgort
For a pic of what it is worth, show buildings, railroads, airplanes, your iPhone etc. Metals build civilization.
dReWdAt
Large balls. I like where your head is at OP.
Ohhhlookaunicorneatingasamurai
*picture of D.va* *giant ball of salt*
PaulLynde
You want to drive hybrid cars and use smart phones, because that's how you get them!!
Retromorphic
Reminds me of the movie sphere
rouverius
Can't we use a some kind of metal detector to find the big balls of copper instead?
larskongo
rouverius
Sipulikeitto
These are brilliant! Just epic stuff.
daizzey
Oh wow that's cool how they just like mine it out and stick it together in a ball
thefinaldegree
Here's some better numbers for the weights:
thefinaldegree
#3 = 4,230,072 KG (9,325,714 Pounds)
thefinaldegree
#1 = 38,747,000 KG (85,422,513 Pounds)
thefinaldegree
#7 = 284,000,000 KG (626,112,825 Pounds)
thefinaldegree
#5 = 4,100,000,000 KG (9,038,952,750 Pounds)
thefinaldegree
#4 = 302,791,000 KG (667,539,888 Pounds)
thefinaldegree
#6 = 3,172,554 KG (6,994,285 Pounds)
thefinaldegree
#2 = 6,500,000 KG (14,330,000 Pounds)
scottypotty
A metric ton is a tonne
demergivore
Great, I type ''large balls'' and this is what I get...
codepoet2
Reminds me of the 'killed on date' thing claimed to be wanted by peta. Backfire..
thechesterqwman
Now I want to own shiny metal spheres.
narcoleptiKnickers
Marikana Mine $175.49 Billion USD West Rand Gold Field - $131.6 Billion USD
Piscivore
Needs bananas.
Sauroctonus
Bananas vary in size.
CaptainShortorder
snakeoilsalesman
Metal weights are measured in carrots.
Piscivore
Well done.
IATTM
DenverPostironic
There might be a banana in all of these; we'd need a red circle, created in MS Paint in order to see it.
wagnus
There is no scale to understand how big the mass of minerals is, and there's no reference to understand how deep the mine is...
smush1337
@op why don't you identify the metals extracted? Some look like copper and another some white metal. Or is this someone else's OC?
Omrie
The copper looking ones are copper. The gold looking one is gold and the palladium looking one is palladium.
SomeDetroitGuy
Why not just use tonnes for everything so we can compare?
MadMarineMinerinMormontownUT
Can you do the Bingham Copper mine next??
casperdaghost
OP seems to have forgotten................it's a Banana for scale...................
719Matmat
Ugh, can't believe they would just leave the metal out there!
SolarPolarBear
What's a Troy Ounce?
UncleMeaty
31.1034768 grams. Troy Ounces are used to measure precious metals.
SolarPolarBear
Thank you
SmashMooth
It seems incredibly irrelevant to have such an ounce. Why not just use the standard ounce? Or even better, the metrics.
UncleMeaty
Spite.
IReviewDickPics
I was down to the fourth image before it occurred to me that some photoshop might be involved.
xcrit
Someone's parents forgot to buy non-toxic crayons.
pareidoliaperson
"Huh, why mine it and forge a giant sphere from it just to put there...?" - My initial thoughts.
da1uhidefrom
It took me until the second as a dense metal ball wouldn't float.
drksdrlife
Gotta be honest. Same.
Jocke
Oh good, I'm not the only one!
icedmcfurry
bellapadella
Very good Photoshop
contaJokeLord
FuckMeFuckYou
Yes. Do you have one?
contaJokeLord
8thPawn
My thought was those miners were going to be pissed once they find out what happened to all the metal they mined.
DevonGronka
The pictures are kind of meaningless without some people or cars or something to put them to scale, you know? like I have no idea how big1/2
DevonGronka
these random hills or quarries are, so I have no idea how big this ball is.
moarDuolingo
True. Some bananas
PiggyWobbles
Yeah + the density of copper makes it difficult to comprehend the actual weight and magnitude of a sphere vs every day objects
LiterallyWorseThanHitler
A 6500 metric ton sphere of pure copper has a diameter of about 11.15 meters (about 73 bananas)
PiggyWobbles
73 bananas you say? interesting.
WoefulWombat
What? You mean that the miners didn't put all their work into making giant metal marbles?
OptimisticDownvoteLover
That be convenient
pareidoliaperson
Orrrr...covenant?
wagnus
Hey, geologist here. These pictures only covered naturally occurring spherical mineral deposits, exclusively above ground
DnoopSogg
But... but if the gods won't have anything to play with we will all be doomed!
NateintheNorth
They'll play with us...
PiggyWobbles
"man what a waste all that digging just to mold some silly ball sculptures"
DeathStarTechSupport
Me too actually. I was very confused at first.
welcometofuckall
Imagine the size of the goose
joe6paques
Now I have gone back and done exactly that.
Hybris51129
Lets just hope it wasn't a giant size Canadian goose.
BugEyedLemur
Giant size Canadian goose, straight from the seventh gate of hell.
DragonDildoChandelier
LongoloidFartExplosion
https://www.unilad.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/PA-30937871-resize-1.jpg
FuckMeFuckYou
Majestic.
BaltimoresJandro
pehmis
This is a nice presentation but some people still won't be able to fathom how much mineral there is in 6,500 metric tons.
SupremeSuperKamiGuru
It also doesn't do a good job at showing all the other minerals pulled. The mine I work at pulls copper, molly, gold, silver and iron.
pehmis
These are African mines, some dating back to the 19th century. They propably didn't have technology to mine multiple minerals.
SupremeSuperKamiGuru
Depends on the mining process, a lot of the other materials are pulled as a byproduct of mining the goal material.
pehmis
The quantities of other minerals and rare earth elements might be so so minute they couldn't be depicted. That or the artist was lazy.
SupremeSuperKamiGuru
That's entirely possible. It really depends on the specific ore in that mine. We pull a fair amount of silver but not much for gold.
pehmis
Average banana weighs about 0,000116 metric tons.
mkbilli
That's approximately 8621 bananas.
andyskeels
FuckMeFuckYou
This is true. Also, wtf is a troy ounce?
FlatPlutoSociety
It's an ounce that's full of Greek soldiers.
RabidDingo
I like it. Good one.
ArrowheadCosplay
The same as an Abed ounce
Moonsmoonsmoons
1/14 of a pound
poughdrew
'Troy Ounce' A unit of measure for weight that dates back to the Middle Ages. Originally used in Troyes, France, the troy ounce was (1/2)
poughdrew
(2/2) used when dealing with precious metals. One troy ounceis equal to 31.1034768 grams. --wikipedia
Djohaal
Aka another shitty non metric measure
poughdrew
Found the non-American!
FourGreenFields
I'm not going to call it shitty until I know what's it based on. If it's easy to replicate and consistent, it's fine.
Nicodemusthefirst
25 grams i think
AncientSeraph
I know I can't. I (like most of the human race) suck at judging volume. And especially in these quantities.
WoefulWombat
Maybe if we had some bananas.
NinjaCongo
Yes! How much is a million troy ounces? I haven't the slightest clue. Gimme a good bunch of bananas, now we're talking!
FrightenedInmateNumberTwo
IATTM
UraniusCrack
that's a sandwich
derwulf
It also sort of ignores the density differences.
JustLettingPeopleBeWrong
There's no measure of volume here, or even some comparison of physical scale. Surely you don't have the data needed to declare that...?
GlebReawer
We would need to know the metal represented. Assuming #6 is Au, it would be ~163,36 m3 or ~5800 cubic feet. Unless I messed up my math :P
GlebReawer
I do believe they are to scale, but they are depicted at different distances in the photos, so they seem to be off at first glance.