When we mine the land, what do we gain and lose?

When we mine the land for precious minerals, what do we gain, and what do we lose?

These giant balls of metal each represent an exact amount of material: the volumes produced by various mines in South Africa.

Artist and photographer Dillon Marsh wanted to visualise the value that humans have taken from the Earth, and its impact.

He added digital balls of material to these photos of scarred landscapes to illustrate what was gained, and what was lost.

The series is called: ‘For what it’s worth’.

  • Ledivin@lemmy.world
    91·
    10 months ago

    I like the general idea here but, without something to compare with for scale, the pictures are just completely meaningless.

    • Grass
      2·
      10 months ago

      The ones that are on flat or raised land I’m not sure how to interpret, but I assume the ones with a pit would originally have been filled in. Even if I took the density of each material to calculate it’s dimensions in the picture most of them are still kinda hard to wrap my head around.

    • whyNotSquirrelEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      aren’t those placed in the ancient mines? like the diamonds are in the digged rocks where they mined it no?

  • Mango@lemmy.world
    2·
    10 months ago

    They’re not precious if we’re not taking advantage of them. Like I tell people in Eve or Albion. Good ships/gear are only good when in use. They’re wasted in your inventory.

    • TIMMAY@lemmy.world
      2·
      10 months ago

      In the very first diamond photo, the ball is on a small stand on the path in the front of the photo, it is VERY small. The next diamond photo is a zoom-in of the same ball and stand. The other diamond photos are roughly the same. Diamond has a very high cost per weight, and essentially all of that cost is falsely inflated and the diamonds are mined at the expense of human beings. Dont buy diamonds.