The Muruntau Open Pit. A panoramic view of the 3.5 x 2.5 km Muruntau open pit, the lowest bench of which is now 510 m below the pre-mining surface. To date some 700 Mt of ore has been removed. The current mining removes around 250 000 tonnes per day of ore + waste, of which 80 000 tonnes is ore. Photograph by Mike Porter
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