RED DOG MINE

The Red Dog Mine is a zinc and lead mine located 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Arctic Borough of Alaska. It is owned and operated by the Canadian mining giant Teck Resources. Red Dog Mine is the largest lead-zinc mine in the world. In 1991, Alaska Structures completed a conveyor enclosure at Red Dog Mine. The conveyor enclosure is more than a mile in length and is the longest fabric building in the world.

RED DOG MINE CONVEYOR ENCLOSURE

HAMBACH SURFACE MINE AND SOPHIENHÖHE

The Sophienhöhe [spoil tip] is an artificial (man-made) hill in Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was created by surface mining at the open cast lignite mine Tagebau-Hambach operated by RWE Power AG. The distance (in respect to sea-level) between the top of Sophienhöhe and the lowest point of the pit is 1.952 feet. The tallest point of Sophienhöhe is Höller Horn at 955 feet above mean sea level. Sophienhöhe is the tallest artificial hill in the world. Tagebau Hambach is the largest hole in Europe and is the lowest surface point in Europe, lying 961 feet below mean sea level.

SOPHIENHÖHE

SUBTROPOLIS

SubTropolis is a 55,000,000-square-foot artificial cave in the bluffs above the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri that is claimed to be the world's largest underground storage facility. Developed by late Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt via Hunt Midwest Real Estate Development, Inc., it has trademarked the phrase World's Largest Underground Business Complex. Dug into the Bethany Falls limestone mine, SubTropolis is, in places, 160 feet beneath the surface. It has a grid of 16 feet high by 40 feet wide tunnels separated by 25 feet square limestone pillars created by the room and pillar method of hard rock mining. The complex contains almost 7 miles of illuminated, paved roads and several miles of railroad track.

ZOLLVEREIN COAL MINE – MOST BEAUTIFUL COAL MINE IN THE WORLD

The Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex is a large former industrial site in the city of Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It has been inscribed into the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites since December 14, 2001, and is one of the anchor points of the European Route of Industrial Heritage. The first coal mine on the premises was founded in 1847, and mining activities took place from 1851 until December 23, 1986. Shaft XII, built in the New Objectivity style, was opened in 1932 and is considered an architectural and technical masterpiece, earning a reputation as the “most beautiful coal mine in the world”. The Zollverein Coking Plant, built between 1957 and 1961 in the same architectural style as Shaft XII, went into operation on September 12, 1961, and enabled the complex to achieve superlative production capacities. Following expansion in the 1970s, 10,000 tons of coal were “baked” into 8,600 tons of coke on the “black side” in 304 ovens at 1,250 degrees Celsius every day. In peak periods, the coking plant employed 1,000 people. Today, the industrial monument is a dynamic cultural location with museums dedicated to industrial heritage and design as well as numerous leisure activities and events. About 1.5 million worldwide guests visit the site every year to experience the exceptional industrial architecture.

SHAFT XII ZOLVEREIN COAL MINE

WORLD'S TALLEST AND DEEPEST ELEVATOR

The world’s tallest and deepest elevator is located in AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine in South Africa. The elevator carries a maximum of 120 people to a depth of 7,940 feet at a top speed of 40 miles per hour.

Please note the following for clarification of my posts entitled; 

• ELEVATORS WITH THE LONGEST CONTINUOUS RUNS (12/22/18)
• WORLD'S DEEPEST TEST ELEVATOR (12/22/18)

If you do a Google search for “deepest” elevator, the first result Google returns is a link to an article at mining technology dot com entitled; “The Top 10 Deepest Mines in the World”. The “Mining Technology” article identifies AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine in South Africa as the deepest mine in the world.

If you do a Google search for “tallest” elevator Google returns a result linking to a Guinness World Records article. The Guinness World Record article identifies AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine as having the tallest elevator in the world. The Guinness article states:

“The world’s tallest elevator is at AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine, which in three minutes drops an astonishing 2,283 m (7,490 ft) in a single descent – more than 4.5 times further than those in the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.

The Google search for “tallest” elevator also returns a result linking to a BBC article referencing the fact that when completed, the Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia will have the world’s tallest “lift” at 2,165 feet.

It is important to note that the Guinness World Record’s article specifically states that the elevator at AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine drops 7,490 feet in a single descent.

The Guinness World Record identification of the AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine single descent of 2,289 meters clearly surpasses Shanghai Tower's continuous run of 578 meters.

My post entitled; “ELEVATORS WITH THE CONTINOUS LONGEST RUNS” which identified the Shanghai Tower as having the longest continuous run of any elevator in the world comes from the Council on Tall Building and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) website.

So, which elevator can currently claim the title of “World’s Tallest” or alternatively “World’s Longest Continuous Elevator Run”?

Based on my reading, I think that there is clearly a distinction being made between elevators in buildings and elevators in mine shafts. As noted above, the BBC ran a story indicating that when completed the Kingdom Tower will have the world’s tallest elevator. All of the elevators referenced by CTUBH as having the tallest runs are also in buildings.

However, even though the BBC article referred to the un-completed Kingdom Tower as having the world’s “tallest” lift and the CTBUH lists the Shanghai Tower as having the elevator with the longest continuous run, I believe that technically speaking the elevator in the AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine, as recognized by Guinness World Records, would be considered the world’s “tallest” elevator and the one with the “longest continuous run”.

There remains one other problem and that has to do with identification of the world’s “deepest” elevator.

My post identifies the Kone test elevator located in a working limestone mine in Finland as the world’s deepest at 350 meters. The elevator at AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine clearly goes much deeper than the Kone test elevator. Upon further checking, I found that all of the references to the Kone Test Elevator as being the world’s “deepest” elevator refer to it as actually being the world’s “deepest test elevator shaft”. I have changed the title of my post regarding the Kone Elevator from the “World’s Deepest Elevator” to the World’s Deepest Test Elevator”.