Equipment

The machines behind every mine, explained.

A mine is a fleet: excavators the length of two football pitches, trucks that carry 400 tonnes, drills, crushers, mills, sorters and conveyors, and the companies that build and run them. Here is what each machine does, where it works and why, with every figure sourced.

Mining equipment, piece by piece

Bagger 293, a bucket wheel excavator taller than a football stadium, working a terrace of the Hambach mine1978–2030Digging · Germany's lignite mines

Bucket wheel excavators

Bagger 293 weighs 14,196 tonnes and digs 240,000 m³ a day. How the biggest land machines work, and why their time is ending.

Big Brutus, a giant stripping shovel, towering over the cars and trees around it1963–2026Records · Mines worldwide

The biggest mining machines

The heaviest, the longest, the tallest: mining's giants side by side, from a 14,196-tonne excavator to a 4-metre tyre.

A red and white walking dragline with its bucket raised on ropes from a long lattice boom, over a lignite strip cut1948–2026Digging · Strip mines

Draglines

A bucket the size of a garage, thrown on ropes from a boom longer than a football pitch. Big Muskie and the machines that walk.

A Caterpillar 797 haul truck with a worker standing beside a front tyre that is more than twice his height1934–2026Hauling · Open-pit mines

Haul trucks

The BelAZ 75710 carries 450 tonnes, a Cat 797F 363. How the biggest dump trucks in the world work, and what their tyres cost.

A yellow haul truck loaded with ore, with a rack of sensors on its front and an empty cab, on a snowy mine road2008–2026Autonomy · Open-pit mines

Autonomous trucks

Thousands of 300-tonne trucks now drive themselves. How autonomous haulage works, where it started and where it is growing fastest.

A row of rock blasts erupting along a quarry face, throwing dust and stones into the air1627–2026Drilling and blasting · Open pit and underground

Drilling and blasting

Before rock can be dug it has to be broken. How mines drill rows of holes and time a blast to the millisecond, at industry level.

A large red crusher inside the steel frame of a crushing plant, with conveyors and walkways around it1858–2026Processing · Crushing

Crushers

Boulders the size of a car go in, gravel comes out. How jaw, gyratory and cone crushers work, and why the biggest take 17,000 tonnes an hour.

A large grey ball mill studded with liner bolts in a long mill hall1940s–2026Processing · Grinding

Ball mills and SAG mills

Turning drums as wide as a four-storey building grind ore to powder. How ball and SAG mills work, and why they use so much power.

A row of tall blue flotation tank cells with walkways and pipes under a blue sky1905–2026Processing · Separation

Froth flotation and tailings

Most of the world's copper, zinc and lead is lifted out of the ore on air bubbles. How flotation works, where it came from, and the tailings it leaves behind.

A containerised ore sorter on legs, fed by an inclined conveyor, at a mine site1911–2026Processing · Sorting

Ore sorting

For centuries people picked ore from waste by hand. Now cameras and X-rays look at every rock on a belt, and puffs of air knock out the waste, or a 2,492-carat diamond.

An underground loader carrying a full bucket of rock through a dark mine room1905–2026Underground · Fleet

Underground mining equipment

Hoists that wind ore up from 4 km down, drill jumbos, low-slung loaders, rock bolters, giant fans and battery-electric fleets: the machines that work underground.

The yellow cutting drum of a longwall shearer under the steel canopies of the shields1690s–2026Underground · Coal

Longwall mining

A shearer runs back and forth along a coal face 300 m long, under a steel roof of hydraulic shields that walk forward behind it. How longwalls work, and what happens above them.

Two blue electric locomotives pull a long ore train along a lake shore through autumn birch woods1899–2026Logistics · Moving ore

Conveyors, rail and ports

A mine is only worth what it can ship. Belts 100 km long, trains so long they vanish over the horizon, and ships that carry 400,000 tonnes move the rock to the world.

A yellow and grey tracked surface drill rig with its mast raised beside broken rock1862–2026Suppliers · Facts only

Who supplies the mines

Mines buy their trucks, drills, crushers and explosives from a small group of makers, some of them over 150 years old. Where they began, and how a few big deals shaped them.

Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Bucket wheel excavators by bluecloud9, CC BY-SA 2.0; Draglines by Roy Luck, CC BY 2.0; Haul trucks by Lechhabmed, CC BY-SA 4.0; Autonomous trucks by RobSimmons223311, CC BY-SA 4.0; Drilling and blasting by Siim Roov, CC BY-SA 4.0; Crushers by photosmith2011, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; Ball mills and SAG mills by photosmith2011, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; Froth flotation and tailings by Nina111955, CC BY-SA 4.0; Ore sorting by Tomra Sorting GmbH, CC BY-SA 4.0; Underground mining equipment by Kaupo Kikkas, CC BY-SA 4.0; Longwall mining by Bochum1805, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0; Conveyors, rail and ports by Kabelleger / David Gubler, CC BY-SA 4.0; Who supplies the mines by Alexandre Prevot, CC BY-SA 2.0.

From rock to ship

  1. Drill and blastDrilling and blasting
  2. DigBucket wheel excavatorsThe biggest mining machinesDraglines
  3. Load and haulHaul trucksAutonomous trucks
  4. Crush and grindCrushersBall mills and SAG mills
  5. SeparateFroth flotation and tailingsOre sorting
  6. UndergroundUnderground mining equipmentLongwall mining
  7. Move to marketConveyors, rail and ports
  8. SuppliersWho supplies the mines

What mining equipment does

Every mine runs the same chain. Rock is drilled and blasted, or dug straight from the face. It is loaded and hauled, crushed and ground, then separated so the valuable minerals leave as concentrate or metal and the rest goes to waste dumps and tailings. Underground mines add shafts, hoists, fans and pumps. Each step has its own machines, and the industry that makes them, supplies the explosives and parts, and runs the fleets on contract is a big business in its own right.

These pages explain the main machines in plain terms: what they are, how they work, where they are used and why one mine picks a dragline while another runs a fleet of trucks. Figures come from makers, operators, record bodies and government sources, and each is cited. Supplier names are facts about who makes what, not advice on any company.

For where the minerals themselves come from, see the minerals guides, the largest mines in the world and mining by country. To read what a mining company publishes about its drilling, start with Learn.

The mines these machines dug

Mining history stories

The Big Hole at Kimberley, the gold rushes, Potosí, the giant copper pits and Congo cobalt, plus 2.4 million drill holes under Western Australia.

The Big Hole at Kimberley, South Africa, seen from above, with water at the bottomMining historyThe Big Hole, KimberleyDiamonds · South AfricaThe Super Pit gold mine at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, at sunsetMining historyGold rushes, then and nowGold and lithium · WorldwideCerro Rico rising above the rooftops of Potosí, BoliviaMining historyPotosí, the mountain of silverSilver · BoliviaThe Chuquicamata copper mine in Chile's Atacama Desert, photographed from the International Space StationMining historyThe biggest copper pitsCopper · Utah and ChileGreen malachite on pink cobaltocalcite, a copper and cobalt specimen from Musonoi near KolweziMining historyCongo's copper and cobaltCopper and cobalt · DR CongoThe Kiruna iron ore mine drawn in 3D: the ore body dipping under the town, its levels and shafts, at the moment of the nightly blastData storyA day in the life of a mine3D · Kiruna, SwedenGold drill-hole columns rising over the Yilgarn goldfields on a satellite map of Western AustraliaData storyUnder Western AustraliaDrill holes · Western AustraliaCopper drill-hole columns over South Australia on a satellite mapData storyUnder South AustraliaDrill holes · South AustraliaCopper drill-hole columns over the Cobar Basin on a satellite map of New South WalesData storyUnder New South WalesDrill holes · New South WalesGold drill-hole columns over the Northern Territory on a satellite mapData storyUnder the Northern TerritoryDrill holes · Northern TerritoryGold drill-hole columns over central Victoria on a satellite mapData storyUnder VictoriaDrill holes · VictoriaDrill holes coloured by year across western Tasmania on a satellite mapData storyUnder TasmaniaDrill holes · TasmaniaGold drill-hole columns over the Abitibi on a satellite map of QuébecData storyUnder QuébecDrill holes · QuébecDrill holes coloured by year across Finland and Sweden on a satellite mapData storyUnder the Nordic shieldDrill holes · Finland and SwedenUranium drill-hole columns over the Athabasca Basin on a satellite map of SaskatchewanData storyUnder SaskatchewanDrill holes · SaskatchewanPalladium drill intervals under farmland at Gonneville, Western Australia, in 3DData storyGonneville, hole by holeDiscovery replay · Western AustraliaA block of ground cut out under the Kalgoorlie Super Pit, its drill holes hanging beneath the satellite pictureData storyWhat's beneath your feet?Interactive 3D · anywhere

Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: The Big Hole by Rudolph Botha, CC BY-SA 3.0; Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0; Cerro Rico over Potosí by Jbmurray, CC BY-SA 4.0; Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0; Malachite on cobaltocalcite, Musonoi by Ji-Elle, CC BY-SA 3.0.