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"Dumping of Earth" Alberta, Canada 2014 (C) Alex S. MacLean/Landslides Aerial Photography

Soil below the muskeg must be removed before miners get to more-deeply buried tar sands oil. The unwanted material is hauled one truck-load at a time to waste piles. The truck seen here, the largest dump truck in the world, is approximately 50 feet high when it's bucket is tipped up. It carries a 400 ton load. 

"Terraces of Open Pit Mining" Suncor Millenium Mine Alberta, Canada 2014 (C) Alex S. MacLean/Landslides Aerial Photography

The Suncor company cut down forests and dug up bogs, known as muskeg, that previously covered this land now known as the Millenium Mine. Huge shovels and giant bulldozers carve broad terraces in the ground as they seek out ore hundreds of feet below the surface. In the distance, sunlight glints off tailing ponds, where processing plants dump waste. The forest displaced by this industrial activity once served as home to numerous kinds of trees, caribou, moose, and many other plants and animals. It also stored massive quantities of carbon in peat deposits on the forest surface.

"Syncrude Mildred Lake Mine on the Banks of the Athabasca River" Alberta, Canada 2014 (C) Alex S. MacLean/ Landslides Aerial Photography

Tar sands mines and processing factories in Alberta are among the largest industrial activities on Earth. The Syncrude Mildred Lake Mine, on the banks of the Athabasca River, measures more than ten miles across.