Coal Mine Field Trip

A few weeks ago we had the unique opportunity to attend a field trip to a coal mine.  I knew my boys would love it!  It had it all - dirt, big vehicles, water, and big machines.  Having never been on such an adventure before we jumped at the opportunity.  I have never seen such large machines.  In the photo below we are standing right in front of that dump truck.  We look like dwarfs in front of the thing!

Because the mine is in production and dangerous there were few places that we could actually get out of the vehicle.  Mostly we just drove around and our tour guide told us about the operations and how the mining was done. 

This Mining Company actually mined for lignite which is a type of coal that can be used for fuel.   Before we went through the tour we all had the image of mining as being in a cave.  Similar to the father's job in the movie October Sky.   

We learned that mining is no longer done that way.  There is a thin layer of lignite in between the layers of dirt.  The lignite is of varying degrees of quality.  Mining today is done by bulldozing the top layers of dirt until they get close to the lignite.  The lignite is then removed by a drag line.  This process is repeated for each layer of lignite.

Here is a good photo of a layer of lignite in between the layers of dirt.  That black strip is what they are mining.  There are several levels of lignite they will mine out before they cover it all back up again and restore the land back to the original way it was found.  They replant the trees and repopulate it with all the original wildlife. 

After riding around awhile the children were delighted to be able to get out and view this very large machine.  Of course, what they really all desired to do was climb on top of the piles and piles of black lignite.  Yeah, that would be fun for Mom to clean on laundry day!

When the tour was over we all enjoyed a nice lunch and playtime at a quaint town a few miles away.  It was certainly a field trip to remember!