Mine through time (3D)
About this app
From hammer and pick to shearer loader: shaft, adit, ventilation and drainage in a rock section, with a ride down.
With explain mode: an AI tutor walks you through the app, points out what matters in the scene and answers your questions.
What makes a mine
Mining brings mineral resources such as ore and coal up from depth. That takes more than digging: shafts and adits give access to the deposit, support made of timber, steel and later hydraulics keeps the openings open, ventilation brings fresh air and carries away firedamp, dewatering lifts the inflowing water, and haulage brings what is won to the surface. Rock temperature rises with depth by about 3 °C per 100 metres; at 1,200 metres the rock is over 40 °C.
What the app shows
A typified mine as a 3D cross-section: on the left an ore vein in the uplands with an adit, on the right coal seams below the overburden. A timeline leads through five periods of mining technology – hammer and wedge, fire-setting, blasting, pneumatic pick and shearer with plough – each with its shaft, levels and a working place as a cutaway model. Arrows show the air current, a display shows depth, rock temperature, air pressure and rock pressure. Gas and water values are model values in time-lapse.
What you can try
Start the descent and watch depth and temperature rise until you arrive at the longwall more than 1,000 metres down. Switch off the ventilation and see methane accumulate in the longwall up to the explosive range. Switch off the pumps and the deepest level floods – only in the medieval mine does the water drain through the adit by itself. Tap the section to measure the temperature at any point.
Frequently asked questions
- Why does it get warmer the deeper you go in a mine?
- Heat constantly flows up from the Earth’s interior. On average the rock temperature therefore rises by about 3 °C per 100 metres, a little more or less depending on the region. In deep coal mines more than 1,000 metres down the rock was over 40 °C and the air had to be cooled.
- Why is firedamp dangerous?
- Firedamp is mostly methane flowing out of the coal. It is invisible and odourless. At about 4.4 to 16.5 percent in air it is explosive, and a single spark then sets off a firedamp explosion. A strong air current dilutes the gas and carries it to the upcast shaft.
- Why does a mine need pumps?
- Groundwater seeps into every mine. Whatever lies above the level of an adit can drain through it to the valley. Deeper workings have to be pumped, formerly with waterwheels and steam engines, later electrically. If the pumps fail, the deepest level floods.
- Is this the mine from the Deutsches Museum?
- No. The app is a typified teaching model of its own and not a replica of the installation in the Deutsches Museum. The mine in the museum’s basement is closed during the refurbishment; whether and how it will return was last open.
Subject: Physics experiments (Deutsches Museum)
More from Physics experiments (Deutsches Museum)
- Benz Patent-Motorwagen 1886 — the four-stroke in section (3D)
- Bohr atomic model & spectral lines (3D)
- Chladni sound figures (3D)
- Steam engine (3D)
- First diesel engine 1897 — ignition by compression (3D)
- Foucault pendulum (3D)
- High-voltage installation — artificial lightning (3D)
- Nuclear fission 1938 — from the lab bench to E = mc² (3D)
A VisuApp by heyprof: interactive, free in your browser, no sign-up. What is a VisuApp? · All apps