1) Largest Flood Defence
The Delta Works off the coast of Holland is a huge series of dams, locks, sluices, storm surge barriers and dykes designed to protect low-lying areas of the country from the sea. Construction began in 1950 and ended in 1997 with the completion of the Maeslantkering and the Hartelkering barriers. The Delta Works contain some 16,495 km (10,250 miles) of dykes and around 300 structures.
The Bingham Canyon Copper Mine near Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, is the world’s largest man-made excavation. More than 5.4 billion tonnes (15.9 billion tons) of rock have been excavated from it since 1906. Visible from space, it measures 4 km (2.5 miles) across and 1.2 km (0.75 miles) deep and has been called “the richest hole on Earth”. In 2001, more than 15.4 million tonnes (16.9 million tons) of copper have been produced from the mine, as well as 652 million g (23 million oz) of gold and 5.3 billion g (190 million oz) of silver.
A barge, ballasted with water and weighing a hefty 20,133 tonnes (44,385,667 lb), was lifted by the “Taisun” crane at Yantai Raffles Shipyard, Yantai, China, on 18 April 2008.
The world’s longest drilled oil well is BD-04-A, with a total length of 12,289 m (40,320 ft). It was completed in May 2008 by Maersk Oil Qatar and Qatar Petroleum, in the Al-Shaheen offshore oil field off the coast of Qatar. The well includes a horizontal section measuring 10,902 m (35,790 ft).
Jagersfontein Mine near Jagersfontein, South Africa, is an open pit mine that has provided some of the largest diamonds ever discovered. It operated as a mine from 1888 until 1971, first as an open mine and underground mine. The Jagersfontein Mine was dug by hand to a depth of 201 m (660 ft) between 1888 and 1911. The area of the opening measures 19.65 ha (48.55 acres).
The “Capital Gate” has an inclination of 18 degrees and is 160 m (524 ft 11 in) high. It was designed by Global Architects RMJM (Dubai) and was completed in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on 4 January 2010.
The 2,460-m-long (8,070-ft) Milau Viaduct across concrete piers, the tallest of which measures 333.88 m (1,095 ft 4.8 in) from the ground to its highest point.
On 15 January 1965, the Soviet Union detonated a 140-kiloton nuclear device underneath a dry bed of the Chagan River, Kazakhstan, Part of the Soviets’ Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy programme, the raise rim of the resulting crater dammed the river, allowing the creation of a reservoir, now known as Lake Chagan. It has volume of around 100,000 m3 (3,531,000 ft3).
Guy’s Tower at Guy’s Hospital in London, UK, is 142.6 m (468 ft) tall. It was completed in 1974 and has 34 floors.
The Strepy-Thieu boat lift on the Canal du Centre, Hainaut, Belgium, uses a counterweight system to carry boats a vertical distance of 73.15 m (240 ft) from its upstream and downstream sections. The two boxes, or caissons, that each boat enters are 112 x 12 m (367 x 39 ft), and weight between 7,200 and 8,400 tonnes (7,936-9,259 tons), depending on the current water level. It takes seven minutes for the vertical journey to be completed.
A chain of pylons carry electricity conductors down the Longdendale Valley to Manchester. The first pylon is a strainer. The others are suspension pylons.
At Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province, China, two electricity transmission pylons stand on opposite banks of the Yangtze River at 346.5 m (1,137 ft) tall. Their length allows the power lines to span the river, which is 2,303 m( 7,556 ft) wide at this point. Another pylon, on the Damaoshan Mountain in Zhoushan city, China, will be 370 m (1,213 ft) tall when it is completed in 2010.
The Cape Cod Canal, which crosses the land that connects Cape Cod to mainland Massachusetts, USA, was constructed between 1909 and 1916. It is 28 km (17.4 miles) long and 164.6 m (540 ft) wide. It is a segment of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, which runs for 4,800 km (3,000 miles) along the American east coast.
The Itaipu hydroelectric dam on the Parana River between Brazil and Paraguay cost $27 billion to build in 1984 ($35.93 billion today), which makes it the priciest object on Earth. Only the International Space Station (ISS) has cost more as a single project.
The Westerholt Power Station in Gelsenkirchen-Westerholt, Germany, was a coal power station constructed in the 1960s and decommissioned in 2005. Its chimney, or smokestack, was constructed in 1997 and was 337 m (1,104 ft) high – the tallest in Germany at that time. It was demolished using explosives on 3 December 2006.
The Boeing Company’s main assembly plant Everett, Washington, USA, has a volume of 13.4 million m3, (472 million ft3) and a floor area of 39.8 ha (98.3 acres). Boeing’s 747, 767 and 777 aircraft are assembled there.
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