The Mikhailovsky opencast mine is located in the north-western part of the Kursk region. This region is called the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly. Here, the compass needle works with deviations, since there are billions of tons of iron ore in the ground. Moreover, it is not just a rock, in some places the iron content reaches 90%. It is the largest iron ore basin in the world.
Not far from the city of Zheleznogorsk there is an observation deck where you can come and look at the gigantic scale of the Mikhailovsky opencast mine. It belongs to Metalloinvest Holding. The company`s management has decided to develop industrial tourism in the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly. Here you can not only come to the observation deck of the Mikhailovsky opencast mine, but also sign up for an excursion to the quarry or to the iron ore production plant.
During the excursion to the quarry, you can go down to its bottom. It is located at a depth of 383 meters. BELAZ trucks with a lifting capacity of 240 tons work here. The wheel of such a truck is more than twice the height of an adult. Its height is 3.6 meters. At the bottom of the Mikhailovsky opencast mine, iron ore is loaded into trucks. They take it higher to the trains, and they go uphill along the terraces of the quarry, which spiral up to the top point. Here the ore is loaded onto special conveyor belts and sent to the processing plant.
The deviations of the compass needle were noticed back in the 18th century. In the 19th century, scientists began studying this phenomenon, and in 1883, physicist Nikolay Pilchikov made a detailed report on iron ore reserves in the area of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly.
The occurrence of iron ore was so shallow, so it was decided to start mining ore not in a mine, but in an open quarry way. Commercial ore mining began in 1957. Now the length of the Mikhailovsky opencast mine reaches 6 kilometers. By 2020, 2 billion tons of iron ore were mined here and the quarry reserves will last for hundreds of years.
The city of Zheleznogorsk appeared next to the Mikhailovsky opencast mine in the mid-1950s. It is inhabited by people working at a Mining and Processing Plant. There are also guided tours at the factory. Tourists can visit the pelletizing factory. The extracted iron ore concentrate is enriched here, after that iron ore pellets are made from it. They are black balls that serve as raw materials for the production of steel or cast iron.
