The GEM of Egypt and it’s sister, The Silver Spade, worked the Belmont & Harrison County Coal fields from the mid 60’s until the late 80’s (for the GEM) and the mid 2000’s (for the Spade). These awesome machines removed the soil (called overburden) from coal seams in strip mining.
The left picture is pretty self explanatory. The right picture is what appears to be an aerial shot of the GEM at work. I-70 can be seen crossing the upper left corner of the picture. The road above it is the remains the western terminus of US-40.
