@kali66 So true, I feel the same way. The mine keeps growing and huge swaths of the landscape give way to it. This mine in particular engulfed a city called 'Ray' and had to relocate the residents. Here is a photo of the city that used to exist in this exact same spot where this photo was taken: http://www.westernmininghistory.com/towns/arizona/ray
@jack4john there have been gold towns come and go here 100 years or so ago, mainly tent cities and now nothing is left, just a couple of ghost towns where odd buildings remain , some of our coal mining towns now becoming obselete too but people hang on. our opencast mining is done out of sight but even that is not commercially viable anymore.