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Listen to part of a lecture in an earth science class.
聽一段地球科學課堂的講座。
The professor is discussing an area of the United States called the Copper Basin.
教授正在論述美國一個叫做闊普盆地的地方。
Now, you may not have heard of the Copper Basin. It's in the Eastern United States, in the Tennessee River Valley.
你可能沒聽說過闊普盆地，它位于美國東部的田納西河谷。
It got its name because settlers discovered copper there in 1843.
在1843年，它因殖民者在此地發現銅而得名。
And soon afterwards, it supported one of the largest metal mining operations in America.
不久之后，它便支持美國其中一個最大的金屬采礦作業。
At one time, four mining companies employed 2500 workers in the Copper Basin.
曾經，四個采礦公司在闊普盆地雇傭了2500名工人。
For that time period, it was a huge operation.
在那段時間，它曾是一項大規模的工程。
Well, this mining operation turned the Copper Basin into a desert.
而這種采礦作業把闊普盆地變為了沙漠。
In the 1840s, when mining operations started, it was a dense green forest.
在19世紀40年代，當采礦作業開始時，這里是一片茂密的森林。
But in the 1940s, 100 years later, it was as barren as the moon.
但是在100年后的20世紀40年代，這里如月球一樣貧瘠。
Efforts to reclaim the land and restore the basin to the fertile valley it once was...well, actually, those efforts are still ongoing.
事實上，收回土地，恢復盆地以往肥沃村莊的努力仍在繼續。
It's been a long and tedious process.
這是一項冗長乏味的過程。
In fact, it was many years before any results were seen.
事實上，經過多年努力，才有所成效。
Copper mining had gone on there for more than 90 years! The damage couldn't be reversed overnight.
銅礦開采已經持續了90多年！損害不可能一夜間逆轉。
Although I should mention that by 1996, the water in one of the rivers flowing through the basin was clean enough that it was the site of the Olympic white water kayaking competition.
盡管我要提一下在1996年時，其中一條河的水流過盆地，它十分的清澈，曾是奧林匹克激流皮劃艇比賽的場地。
And that river is still used now for recreation.
而且那條河至今仍用于娛樂。
But...anyway...let's analyze the problem.
但是……總之，讓我們分析一下問題。
It wasn't the mining itself that caused such massive destruction.
不是采礦本身引起了如此大的破壞性。
It was what happened after the copper ore was extracted from the mines. It was a process called heap roasting.
是銅礦從礦井中提取后發生的事情。這一過程叫做堆燒法。
Copper ore contains sulfur. And heap roasting was a way to burn away the sulfur in the copper, so they'd be left with something closer to pure copper.
銅礦含有硫磺，堆燒是燒去銅里面硫磺的一種方法，所以留下的近乎于純銅。
Well, in the process, large vats of raw copper ore are burned slowly, for two or three months actually, to lower the sulfur content.
在這個過程中，大桶未加工的銅礦需要緩慢燃燒，事實上要兩或三個月的時間減少含硫量。
