I had once considered creating such an industry as a type of coal mine. But drawing large pits of different shapes is quite difficult and time-consuming. Their edges and levels are very irregular and I did not come up with an idea, how to easily combine these and not get lost between sprites meanwhile.
Another idea was to create some central industry (main buildings, these large mining machines) and let the neighboring area be covered by "farmland" imitating a strip mine landscape.
The other thing is, that a strip mine grows slowly, dumps are created etc. It should pe possible to simulate this by showing a transition from a shaft mine to an open pit - create a distributed, irregular industry consisting of several mining objects (main shaft, wind shaft, dump, a minor shaft, a small strip mine). The strip mine will then start to grow since cca 1950s and it would consume some of old mines, which will be replaced by abandoned covered shaft holes, undermined areas with warning signs etc. and then destroyed finally by moving front of the strip mine. It usually happened in this way in reality. Some parts of the areal may even get recultivated.
But this is a LOT of work and requires a skilled artist. I am able to create some parts of such a thing (mine buildings, shaft towers, machinery) if such a project begins, but the pit itself waits for someone else, if we want it gigantic. And it should be gigantic, because strip mines are not small.
There are some areas, where coal was mined in this way, in Czech republic where I am from and they destroyed large parts of landscape including villages and towns, If there is a strip mining in an area, it affects it very strongly, so the ingame impact must be appropriate.
Also, I would prefer a potential strip mine to be only one possibility depending on terrain configuration. The game should place srtip mines in lowlands, to vast areas of flat terrain, and normal shafts anywhere else - both for gameplay and realism issues.
Some other photographs form northern Bohemia are here:
http://www.hornictvi.info/histhor/lokal ... /image.htm
An aerial photograph zoomable map view of such a region is here:
http://amapy.atlas.cz/?#appName=atlasof ... @geoType=1
And one photo from a recent trip there:
http://prebral.net/gal/ryba/mostecko/Page.html
I remember the first time i saw this thing and i was so amaged by the size of it. It huuuuge!