The deepest mines are vertical shaft mines; they literally are just tunnels into the ground going straight down, with side tunnels off the sides. The records, so far, are for these types of mines to reach about 3.5 km down (just over 2 miles) into the Earth's crust.
Most of these are in South Africa, extracting gold and diamonds. Possibly the deepest is East Rand, which has working levels extending to 3585 meters.
At that depth the pressure on the rock is enormous. So much so that that when a tunnel is created, the rock face (in the tunnel) is prone to exploding. These explosions are called rock burst, and account for something like 250 deaths each year in South African mines.
It's also very hot down this far into the Earth's crust. So much so that people can only work with industrial strength air conditioning units.
The Western Deep mines (also working depth to about 3.5 km deep) is being extended to 4.1 km deep. The plan is to eventually get to 5 km deep, but it's a tall order. It just gets too hot (estimated temperatures of 70 deg. C being quoted) and dangerous (rock burst, again) to send people down there.
Most of these are in South Africa, extracting gold and diamonds. Possibly the deepest is East Rand, which has working levels extending to 3585 meters.
At that depth the pressure on the rock is enormous. So much so that that when a tunnel is created, the rock face (in the tunnel) is prone to exploding. These explosions are called rock burst, and account for something like 250 deaths each year in South African mines.
It's also very hot down this far into the Earth's crust. So much so that people can only work with industrial strength air conditioning units.
The Western Deep mines (also working depth to about 3.5 km deep) is being extended to 4.1 km deep. The plan is to eventually get to 5 km deep, but it's a tall order. It just gets too hot (estimated temperatures of 70 deg. C being quoted) and dangerous (rock burst, again) to send people down there.
