Episode
Modern Marvels: Coal Mines
Overview
Coal–the fuel responsible for more than half the electricity used daily. We unearth the amazing technological advances that have led to today’s extremely efficient methods–from ancient techniques to the simplistic bell-pit method, from drift mining, surface mining, and strip mining to modern longwall mining, when a massive machine extracts an entire wall of coal in seconds. We go underground with miners in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming, and also address environmental concerns.
Details
- Series
- Modern Marvels
- Season
- Season 10
- Episode
- Episode 16
- Air date
- 2003-04-02
- Runtime
- 44 min
Episode context
Coal Mines is Episode 16 in Season 10 of Modern Marvels. It aired on 2003-04-02. The runtime is 44 min.
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Episode 15: Titanic Tech
Welcome aboard the luxury liner Titanic, the world’s largest ship and pride of the White Star Line. Watertight compartments and a steel-plated hull render it all but unsinkable. Nearly every technological breakthrough of the previous 50 years is employed onboard, providing comfort and safety for passengers and crew. But none of this will matter on April 15, 1912, when the ship bears down on an iceberg on her maiden voyage, sinking within hours with more than 1,500 lives lost. Learn the details of her construction and how the achievements of technology may have masked her vulnerabilities.
Episode 17: Secrets of the Acropolis
With a thrilling combination of dramatic reconstructions and 3-D animation, we step back in time to the Golden Age of Greece and the birth of democracy, to an era of unparalleled human creativity that produced the magnificent architecture on the Acropolis. Powerfully evoking the pagan rituals that made the Acropolis the heart of Athenian life, we explore all four key buildings: the Propylaia, the Erectheion, Athena Nike, and the Parthenon–the most influential building in Western civilization.
More episodes from this season
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As Japan bombed its way into the Pacific during WWII, Imperial soldiers carried pride, a sense of invincibility, and an arsenal of clumsy and outdated weapons. Convinced that the tactics and tools that led to victory over colonial enemies would be just as effective against the Allies, Japan would see its weaponry lead to defeat.
Episode 18: Machine Guns
Episode 13: Black Hawk: Night Stalker
For over 20 years, the Black Hawk has been the U.S. Army’s front-line utility helicopter for air assault, air cavalry, and medical evacuation. The Black Hawk remains today the world’s most advanced twin-turbine military helicopter and flies wherever duty calls, from hot deserts to the icy Arctic. This is the dramatic story of how post-Vietnam, in the 1970s, the U.S. designed and built a new generation of sophisticated helicopters.
Episode 19: Ball Turret Gunners
In war, certain missions demand the most and constitute much of the legends of bravery. Journey back to the Second World War when fearless airmen manned the B-17′s belly guns–glass bubbles that at any moment could become their coffin. The ball turret gunners called their work “flying the ball”, others called it crazy!
Episode 12: Army Corps of Engineers
Made up of soldiers and civilians, scientists and specialists in an enormous variety of fields, the US Army Corps of Engineers was created over 200 years ago by Congressional mandate to respond, in peace and war, to the nation's engineering needs. The world's premier engineering and research and development agency, the Corps has blown up, excavated, grated, dredged, and remolded the shape of our continent as we pushed to expand the nation and harness the forces of nature!
Episode 20: U.S. Guns of World War II
Episode 11: Space Stations
Episode 21: MiG 15
After World War I, Russia began building its most prolific aircraft, the MiG line. MiG pilots fought with distinction in WWII, but the MiG heyday hit with the design of the MiG-15, a copy of a Nazi experimental jet. During the Korean War, MiG-15s dueled with U.S.A.F. F-86s over Korea. Later, the MiG-21 contested the skies over North Vietnam as they duked it out with American Air Force and Navy jets.
Episode 10: Non-Lethal Weapons
They stun, debilitate, immobilize–providing police and peacekeepers with options other than shouting or shooting. From the ancient caltrop–a multi-pointed contraption hurled by foot soldiers into a horseman’s path–to sting-ball grenades, electrical shock devices, and sound, light, and energy weapons, we examine non-lethal weapons that disperse crowds and take down criminals. And in a whiff of the future, we see why the government thinks stink bombs might prove useful in the war against terror.
Episode 22: T-34: Russian Victory
Born out of a desperate need to defend the Motherland, Stalin enlisted the ideas of an American engineer, J. Walter Christie, to develop in total secrecy one of the most formidable tanks in history. In 1941, straining under Operation Barbarossa, Stalin ordered his new weapon into the fray and changed the course of WWII. Using detailed reenactments and interviews, we reveal what life was like inside Russia’s “secret” weapon, the T-34, and the horrifying reality of combat on the Eastern Front.