belt conveyors are not a recent innovation they have been used many years for all sorts of

industrial applications i'm not sure why i think conveyor belts are cool but i do i always have

i like the little ones at the grocery store i I like the big luggage loops at the airport.

Even that Jamiroquai video,

where it looks like he's sliding around the room.

But today, we're going big.

I'm taking you to the world's largest conveyor belt.

The 61-mile conveyor belt system rolling across the western Sahara, the longest conveyor belt. The 61-mile conveyor belt system rolling across the western Sahara,

the longest conveyor belt in the world. Except that this conveyor belt, it turns out it's

more than just a conveyor belt. And I have to tell you, neither the belt nor this episode

went where I thought they would.

I'm Dylan Thuris, and this is Atlas Obscira, your guide to the world's strange, incredible,

and wondrous places. Today's episode is part one of a two-part series, because while this

conveyor belt may start out in Western Sahara,

it ends on your dinner plate.

Welcome to Part 1, The Belt.

After this.

We're talking about the world's longest conveyor belt.

And like most of the world's other oversized conveyor belts, this belt is part of a mining operation.

It stretches 61 miles across the desert of western Sahara, and it carries tons and tons of this one specific natural resource that's mined from the earth.

But before we can really zoom in on the story of the world's longest conveyor belt, we need to zoom way out to understand the extremely precious and important resource this belt was built to carry. So here we go.

We're going to zoom way, way out, like far out, man. So out there in space, there are stars.

...