The largest
open-pit ore mine is in
Chile.
Copper is extracted from this pit, which is 3.8 x 1.8 x 0.6 km in size.
The deepest open-pit mine, (also the deepest hole made by man) is in the middle of Kimberley
South Africa, and is 1.2km deep. It was dug over 43 years from 1871 to 1914, and yielded 14,000,000
carats of
diamonds, and 25,000,000 metric ton of soil and rock. The
spoil heaps can be found in every direction around the hole.
Source :- World Records In Chemistry, Faust, Knaus, Siemling Wiley-VCH