Large-scale Mining Area In Mongolia One

After a 16-hour drive under the piercing blue skies of Mongolias southern Gobi

, the first view of the worlds newest mega-mine looks eerily like a desert aflame.Black clouds of dust billow up above the horizon from the pit at Tavan Tolgoi, where a swarm of bulldozers and mechanical diggers have clawed a 70-metre-deep gash into the yellow hills.This resource thought to be the biggest deposit of coking coal on the planet is chewed out and transported away to China by a seemingly endless line of trucks that rumble across the plains in a convoy of dust.Until recently, this area of southern Mongolia was one of the worlds last great wildernesses a cold desert that is home to gazelle, wild ass and herders living a traditional nomadic existence.Today, however, it is the centre of the planets greatest resource boom. Some are calling it the last frontier, others Minegolia. Whatever the name, this impoverished but remarkable nation in east Asia is on the brink of one of the most dramatic transformations in human history.The vast opencast pit at Tevan Tolgoi is just the start. Its six billion tonnes of coal are being partly developed by a local mining firm. Extraction rights will also be auctioned off to overseas bidders, likely to include Chinas Shenhua, Peabody of the United States and a Russian consortium. Whoever does the digging, the ultimate buyer of the fuel is likely to be China, which accounts for 85% of Mongolias exports.Other mega-mines will follow. The extraction is expected to triple the national economy by 2020 and propel the living standards of the small, impoverished population of 2.6 million into the global middle class. But locals fear it will also devastate an arid environment as the mines suck up scarce water resources, damage the grasslands and necessitate roads and electricity grids that disrupt the migration patterns of local animal species.The damage is already evident in the cross-Gobi traffic, where drivers churn up so much dust that some use their headlights in the middle of the day to pierce the gloom.Every day, they use 2,000 off-road 100-tonne trucks. There is so much dust in the sky, it looks like a war is taking place, said Enkhbat, co-chairman of the Mongolian Green Party, who fears unregulated development of the southern Gobi could lead to ecological catastrophe. The government needs a much more comprehensive plan to protect the environment and respect local communities. This is not just about economics. It is about human rights.Nomad families in the area blame the mines for dried up wells, shrinking watering holes and clouds of dust that blacken the lungs and stomachs of their animals.It makes us cough. Even the animals cough. There is so much dust we cant recognise which animal is which, said Tsevedelger, a 60-year-old herder. The animals eat the dusty grass. Then humans eat the poisoned animals. Soon it will be impossible for us to stay here.The next super-mine to come online will be Oyu Tolgoi, which is operated by Canadas Ivanhoe Mines and Rio Tinto, a UK-headquartered mining multinational. Once it starts operations in 2012, it expects to produce 450,000 tonnes of copper every year for half a century. The total output will be worth about US$200 billion at todays prices.The transformative potential of the mining boom was the subject of an international conference in the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator, in October. Officials from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) expressed hope that Mongolia as a rare democracy in east Asia could set an example in transparent, environmentally sensitive resource extraction that will benefit the entire population.It"s very exciting. Mongolia has the potential to do it right, said Ajay Chhibber, UNDP assistant secretary-general. In a way, Mongolia is the last frontier. You might have to go back to the Californian gold rush [of the mid-19th century] to find anything similar.As the professional manufacturer of complete sets of mining machinery, such as Wet magnetic separator,Sand making machine,Cement equipment, Henan Hongxing is always doing the best in products and service.cement mill:http://www.hxjqchina.com/n27.html spiral separator:http://www.crusher-machine.com/27.html

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