Biggest Explosions Ever Happened

Explosions are tricky to measure. For one, what are the criteria? And most data on “blasts from the past” are speculation at best. Explosions, both natural and man-made, have caused awe and terror for centuries. And some even caused the extinction of life from earth.

Here I have compiled some of the most powerful explosions the world has ever seen. I hope you will like it and will find it informative.

Gamma ray bursts

Gamma ray bursts are the most powerful explosions known in the universe. GRB 090423 reached our world even from about 13 billion light-years in 2009. That explosion, which lasted just a little more than a second, released roughly 100 times more energy than our sun will release in its entire 10 billion year lifetime.

Shadow-casting Supernova

The brightest recorded supernova in history was sighted in the constellation Lupus in the spring of 1006. The extraordinary golden explosion now known as SN 1006 took place roughly 7,100 light years away in a fairly nearby part of the galaxy, and was bright enough to cast shadows and read by at night, remaining visible for months in the daytime.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

The comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided spectacularly with Jupiter in 1994. The giant planet’s gravitational pull ripped the comet apart into fragments up to 1.8 miles wide, and they struck at 37 miles per second, resulting in 21 visible impacts. It was estimated to have exploded with the force of 6,000 gigatons of TNT.

The K-T Extinction Impact Event

The Age of Dinosaurs ended in a cataclysm roughly 65 million years ago that killed off roughly half of all species on the planet. It is thought to have been by a cosmic impact vast crater roughly 110 miles (wide at Chicxulub on the coast of Mexico may be the blast site.

Mount Tambora

In 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia exploded with the force of roughly 1,000 megatons of TNT, the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history. The blast hurled out roughly 140 billion tons of magma and not only killed more than 71,000 people on the island of Sumbaw. The picture is not of mount Tambora but just a depiction of it.

Tunguska

The mysterious explosion near the Tunguska River in 1908 flattened some 500,000 acres of Siberian forest. Scientists think the blast was caused by a cosmic impact from an asteroid or comet perhaps 65 feet in diameter and 185,000 metric tons in mass. The resulting explosion could have been roughly as strong as four megatons of TNT.

The Trinity Blast

The first atom bomb in history, dubbed “the gadget,” was detonated at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo, N.M., in 1945, exploding with a force of roughly 20 kilotons of TNT.

Chernobyl

In 1986, a nuclear reactor exploded at Chernobyl in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. It was the worst nuclear accident in history. The blast, which blew the 2,000-ton lid off the reactor, sent out 400 times more radioactive fallout than the Hiroshima bomb, contaminating more than 77,000 square miles of Europe.

The Halifax Explosion

In 1917, a French cargo ship fully loaded with explosives for World War I accidentally collided with a Belgian vessel in the harbor of Halifax, Canada. It exploded with more force than any man-made explosion before it, equivalent to roughly 3 kilotons of TNT.

The Texas City Disaster

A fire onboard the cargo ship SS Grandcamp docked at Texas City in 1947 detonated 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate, a compound used in fertilizers and high explosives. The explosion blew two planes out of the sky and triggered a chain reaction that detonated nearby refineries as well as a neighboring cargo ship carrying another 1,000 tons of ammonium nitrate.

Biggest Hole Mines in the World

With explosions and massive machines scraping into the earth’s crust like a bad case of scabies, its small wonder open cast mining has made what many see as an unpleasant impact on the planet’s surface. The face of the earth is beleaguered with giant scars, scoured out in our ongoing bid to the plunder the planet of its natural resources.

Here I have compiled some of the biggest hole mines in the world. I hope you will like it.

Kalgoorlie Super Pit

Kalgoorlie Super Pit is gigantic pockmark in Western Australia is continent’s largest open cut gold mine at 3.5 km long, 1.5 km wide and 360 m deep. It’s huge. And it’s growing. At least, that is, until 2017 when it is expected to cease being productive.

The Big Hole, South Africa

Another open pit whose name leaves little to the imagination, the Big Hole in Kimberly, South Africa, is said to be the largest hole excavated by hand. The Big Hole is 463 meters wide and was dug to a depth of 240 m. It’s now a show mine complete with a restored old town.

Diavik Diamond Mine

Diavik Diamond Mine is located in Canada. This is an open cast mine like no other. Gouged into a 20 square km island, there are particularly jaw-dropping views of this cold spot when the surrounding waters freeze over.

The Diavik Mine

Connected by a treacherous ice road, this remote mine takes some getting to and so even has its own airport big enough to accommodate Boeing 747s. This yawning hole throws up 8 million carats of diamonds a year.

Ekati Diamond Mine, Canada

The Ekati Diamond Mine is North America’s first commercial diamond mine. It’s actually only a stone’s throw from the Diavic Mine just 20 km closer to the Arctic Circle.

Grasberg Mine, Indonesia

Opened in 1973, Indonesia’s Grasberg Mine is the world’s biggest gold mine and third largest copper mine.

Chuquicamata, Chile

Chuquicamata in Chile is a colossus of a mine that has churned up a record total of 29 million tons of copper. Despite almost 100 years of intensive exploitation, it remains among the largest known copper resources.

Escondida, Chile

The Escondida Mine has yielded 1.48 million tons worth US$ 10.12 billion of copper in 2007. Escondida has become a key part of the Chilean economy and employs some 2,951 people directly.

Udachnaya Diamond Mine, Russia

The Udachnaya Mine in Russia is a gigantic open-pit diamond mine that plunges more than 600 meters into the earths crust.

Mirny Diamond Mine, Russia

The largest open diamond mine in the world, this Russian monster has a surface diameter of 1.2 km and is 525 m deep. The size of the hole is such that a wind current inside cause a downdraft that has resulted in helicopters being sucked in and crashing.

Biggest Meteorite Craters in the World

An impact crater forms when an asteroid or comet strikes another body such as an asteroid, planet, or moon at high speed. As Earth is so active geologically, most traces of impact craters have been erased by erosion and tectonic activity. Nevertheless, over one hundred seventy impact craters have been identified on Earth.

Here are some of the biggest Meteorite craters found on earth. I hope you will like it.

Barringer Crater, Arizona, US

Some 49,000 years ago a large nickel-iron meteorite 150 ft across, weighing several hundred thousand tons and traveling at a speed of 40,000 miles per hour, hit Earth. The result of this meteor is 55 km crater called the Barringer Crater. It’s the best preserved impact crater ever.

Bosumtwi, Ghana

The impact of a meteorite some 1.3 million years ago opened up hole in the ground with a 6 mile diameter.

Deep Bay, Canada

Deep Bay is a strikingly circular, very deep and unusually irregular and shallow lake. The 8 mile wide crater is a complex impact structure with a low, totally submerged central uplift, formed about 100 million years ago.

Aorounga impact crater, Chad

Aorounga is an eroded meteorite impact crater that formed 2-300 million years ago in an area of the Sahara Desert, northern Chad, in Africa, when a comet or asteroid with a 1 mile diameter hit the crust of Earth.

Gosses Bluff, Australia

Approximately 142 million years ago, a large asteroid or comet (22 km in diameter) crashed at 40 km/sec and released massive energy equivalent to 22 000 megaton’s of TNT.

Mistastin Lake, Canada

The Mistastin crater is the result of a meteorite crash that caused a 17.4 miles wide giant hole into the ground, 38 million years ago. It is located in Labrador, Canada.

Clearwater lakes, Canada

Two circular lakes/impact craters on the Canadian Shield in Quebec formed simultaneously by the impact of an asteroid pair which crashed on Earth approximately 290 million years ago.

Kara-Kul, Tajikistan

This crater is situated in Tajikistan. It has formed a lake. The lake is actually located within a 28 mile wide circular depression, which was hit by a meteorite approximately 5 million years ago.

Manicouagan, Canada

This crater is located in central Quebec, Canada. Some 212 million years ago, a 3 mile wide asteroid hit the earth, to causing a 62 mile wide giant hole.

Chicxulub, Mexico

This ancient impact crater is huge at 105 miles in diameter. The impact happened roughly 65 million years ago when a comet or asteroid the size of a small city crashed on Earth.

Biggest Oil Spills in History

The oil gushing from the well where the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank is now spreading through the Gulf of Mexico. Oil spills can kill wildlife, pollute the air and water, and alter the ecosystem for years to come. Many of us think of the Exxon Valdez oil spill as a particularly bad one, but with about 42,800 tons of oil spilled, it doesn’t rank as one of the 10 worst ever.

So here I have compiled a list of some of the biggest oil spills in history. I hope you will find it informative.

The Odyssey

In November 1988, the American-owned oil tanker Odyssey split in two 700 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia. The tanker spewed about 132,000 tons of crude oil into the sea and caught fire as it sank, setting the spill aflame.

The Haven

A violent explosion aboard the Cyprus-based tanker the Haven killed six members of the crew and spilled 145,000 tons of oil off the coast of Italy in April 1991. About 70 percent of the oil burned in the ensuing fire. Oil from the Haven was later found in ocean beds at depths of up to 1,640 feet.

The Amoco Cadiz

Stormy weather drove the Amoco Cadiz Very Large Crude Carrier aground on the Portsall Rocks, a 90-foot deep outcrop off the coast of Brittany, France, in 1978. The ship split in two and quickly sank before its 1,604,500 barrels of oil load could be pumped from the wreck.

Castillo de Bellver: 252,000 tons

In August 1983, a fire aboard the Castillo de Bellver led to an explosion that caused the tanker to break in two. Oil spilled into the sea 24 miles off the coast of Cape Town, marking the largest spill to date in South Africa. Luckily, the oil caused minimal environmental damage as the direction of the wind moved the oil slick offshore, where it dissipated naturally.

ABT Summer: 260,000 tons

ABT Summer tanker, traveling from Iran to Rotterdam, leaked oil and caught on fire about 700 miles off the Angolan coast in 1991. The disaster killed five of the 32 crew members on board.

Nowruz oil field

During the first Gulf War, a tanker collided with a platform on Feb. 10, 1983, spilling approximately 1,500 barrels each day, until the platform was attacked by Iraqi planes in March and the slick caught fire. The Nowruz oil field was not immediately capped, because the field was located in the middle of the Iran/Iraq war zone.

Fergana Valley: 285,000 tons

The Fergana Valley, one of Central Asia’s most densely populated agricultural and industrial areas, was the site of the largest inland oil spills in history in 1992.

Atlantic Empress/Aegean Captain: 287,000 tons

In July 1979, a Greek oil tanker called the Atlantic Empress collided with another ship, the Aegean Captain, during a tropical storm off of the island of Tobago in the Caribbean Sea. The Atlantic Empress disaster killed 26 crew members and is the largest ship-based oil spill.

Ixtoc I oil well: 454,000 tons

The Ixtoc I oil well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in June 1979. The oil drilling platform then caught fire and collapsed, rupturing valves and making it difficult for rescue personnel to control the damage. The spill continued until March 1980.

Gulf War oil spill: 1,360,000 -1,500,000 tons

The worst oil spill in history, the Gulf War oil spill spewed an estimated 8 million barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf after Iraqi forces opened valves of oil wells and pipelines as they retreated from Kuwait in 1991. The oil slick reached a maximum size of 101 miles by 42 miles and was five inches thick.

Big Bud One of the Biggest Tractors in the World

This is Big Bud. For many years it was the largest tractor in the world. It was built by Ron Harmonn’s crew in Montana. The largest Big Bud 747 appeared in 1977 for deep plowing on a cotton farm in California. Only imagine: this tractor weighs over 45 tons! And it still runs, though some manufactures build even bigger tractors today.

In 1977 the Big Bud 747 tractor was built in Havre, Montana. The tractor was built by Ron Harmon and the crew of the Northern Manufacturing Company. The tractor was built to produce 760 horsepower using a 16-cylinder Detroit Diesel engine. The tractor measures 27 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 14 feet tall. The tires were specially made by United Tire Company of Canada and are 8 feet in diameter. When the 1,000 gallon fuel tank is full the tractor tips the scales at over 100,000 pounds.

Equipped with custom-built tires, made by United Tire Company of Canada, Big Bud can work more than an acre of land in just one minute. The Williams Brothers made some minor modifications to the engine, and the tractor is now able to produce 900 bhp, instead of the initial 760 bhp.