Medvezhka mine, south of Noril'sk. An example of extensive surface
nickel and copper mining. Nowadays almost completely replaced by
underground mining. |
As a resource base, the region's riches
are being exploited at an ever-increasing rate as the twentieth
century moves towards its end. These resources are varied. For example,
they include vast forests which run right around the globe. Now
that the forests of Indonesia have already been depleted, Japanese
industry is starting to import timber from eastern Siberia. The
largest field of oil and natural gas known in the United States
was discovered in 1968 at Prudhoe Bay in the north of Alaska and
helps to keep the cars of California on the move.he world's largest
oil and gas reserves in the world were first discovered in 1960
in a vast swamp in western Siberia, and they now provide most of
the precious foreign currency earned by the entire Russian economy.
It has also been estimated that Siberia contains half of all the
world's coal reserves. There are other valuable commodities there
and in other parts of the Arctic. One Sakha has complained that
his part of Siberia reminds him of a huge ship, laden with treasure
and boarded by pirates. When they have finished with the minerals,
they will tear down the forests. 'As they shovel diamonds, tin,
gold, coal and mica feverishly into chests,' he writes, 'they cast
their greedy eyes still further at the piles of timber which like
a giant float keep this ship from sinking.' |
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