『新东方在线托福听力』为托福考生准备了ETS托福TPO/Official 32 Lec 3听力练习：What is the lecture mainly about?原文题目答案解析，TPO/Official 32 Lec 3听力原文范文音频翻译。

托福TPO/Official 32 Lec 3听力原文What is the lecture mainly about?【新东方在线】

旁白：听一段地球科学的演讲。

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an earth science class.

教授讨论的是美国一个叫做铜盆地的地方。

The professor is discussing an area of the United States called the Copper Basin.

教授：现在，你们可能没有听说过铜盆地。

Professor: Now, you may not have heard of the Copper Basin.

它位于美国东部，在田纳西河山谷。

It’s in the Eastern United States, in the Tennessee River Valley.

它有这个名字是因为在1843年,在那里的定居者发现了铜。

It got its name because settlers discovered copper there in 1843.

在这后的不就，它就支撑了美国最大的金属矿开采作业之一。

And soon afterwards, it supported one of the largest metal mining operations in America.

曾经，四个开采公司在铜盆地雇佣了2500个工人。

At one time, four mining companies employed 2500 workers in the Copper Basin.

在那个时候，这是一个巨大的工程。

For that time period, it was a huge operation.

这个工程将铜盆地变成了沙漠。

Well, this mining operation turned the Copper Basin into a desert.

在1840s，当开采工程开始的时候，这里还是一个茂密的绿色森林。

In the 1840s, when mining operations started, it was a dense green forest.

但是在1940s,100年以后，它像月亮一样贫瘠。

But in the 1940s, 100 years later, it was as barren as the moon.

回收这些土地并将这个盆地恢复到它从前那样肥沃的山谷，这样的努力到现在还在进行着。

Efforts to reclaim the land and restore the basin to the fertile valley it once was…well, actually, those efforts are still ongoing.

事实上，在有任何成果之前，需要很多年的时间去修复。

In fact, it was many years before any results were seen.

铜开采在那里持续了超过90年。

Copper mining had gone on there for more than 90 years!

损坏是不可能在一夜之间被逆转的。

The damage couldn’t be reversed overnight.

尽管如此，我还是要提一下到1996年为止，一条穿过盆地的河流已经足以干净到成为奥林匹克白色水域独木舟竞赛的场所。

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.

并且这条河仍然在消遣活动中被使用。

And that river is still used now for recreation.

但是，不管怎样，让我们来分析一下问题。

But…anyway…let’s analyze the problem.

并不是开采本身造成了这么大的毁坏。

It wasn’t the mining itself that caused such massive destruction.

毁坏发生在铜矿被提取出来以后。

It was what happened after the copper ore was extracted from the mines.

而堆烤就是用来将铜当中的硫磺燃烧掉的方法，这样剩下的东西就很接近纯铜。

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.

在这个过程中，大的铜矿烧的比较慢，事实上要花2-3个月去降低硫磺的成分。

Well, in the process, large vats of raw copper ore are burned slowly, for two or three months actually, to lower the sulfur content.

这样的燃烧，好的，让我们来看一下结果会怎么样。

And this burning, well…let’s look at the results.

首先，矿山一般都比较远，所以没有方法去把煤或者其他一些燃料带来，去保持火一直燃烧。

First, the mines were fairly remote, so there was no way to bring coal or other fuel to keep the fires going.

因此，他们砍了当地的树木当做燃料。

就想我说过的，这样的火要持续数月。

And like I said, the fires burned for months.

那就意味着很多火和很多棵树。

Uh…that’s a lot of fires and a lot of trees.

Deforestation was occurring at a rapid rate.

焚烧矿石的烟雾也加速了这个过程。

And it was accelerated by the smoke from the burning ore.

对树木有毒的硫磺烟雾云团在这个地方形成。

Big clouds of sulfuric smoke, which was toxic to the trees, formed over the areas.

还未被砍伐用作燃料的树木被这个烟气所毒死。

Trees that hadn’t been cut for fuel were killed by the fumes.

硫磺也会和空气混合，形成二氧化硫。

The sulfur also mixed with the air and created sulfur dioxide.

然后在云团中的二氧化硫在雨滴中降落到地面上，并渗透到土壤中。

And the sulfur dioxide settled in the clouds fell to the land in droplets of rain and sank into the soil.

不管怎样……酸雨造成了强酸性的土地。

Anyway…the acid rain created highly acidic soil.

很快的这土地就变得酸性太强，以至于没有什么可以在上面生长。

Well, soon the soil became so acidic that nothing could grow, nothing at all.

但是这样的破坏不仅仅发生在土地或者空气中，水也受到了破坏。

And it wasn’t just the land and the air, it was the water too.

没有树木可以吸收雨水，那么就有大量的雨水。

Well, there are no trees to absorb the rain, and there was a lot of rain.

所以雨水侵蚀了土壤，并且将它冲刷到河流里去。

So the rain eroded the soil and swept it into the rivers.

当土壤颗粒被冲到河流里面去，就被称作为淤积。

This is called silting, when soil particles are washed into the rivers.

并且这样的淤积以惊人的速度持续着。

And the silting continued at an alarming rate.

但是这是有毒的土壤和径流，在土壤中的酸和金属使得一度清澈的河流变得橙黄。

But this was toxic soil and toxic runoff, the acid and metals in the soil made the once clear rivers flow bright orange.

所以，这真的是在制铜过程中的一步……问题越来越严重直到原来美丽的森林变成沙漠。

So it was really that one step in the process of producing copper…the problems just built up and up until there was a desert where a beautiful forest used to be.

好的。现在我们来看一下重造森林和土地开垦的努力。

OK. Now let’s look at reforestation and land reclamation efforts.

What is the professor’s opinion about the effort to reclaim the land in the Copper Basin?

What does the professor imply when he mentions an Olympic whitewater kayaking competition?

According to the lecture, why was heap roasting used in the producing of copper?

What factors led to the disappearance of trees in the Copper Basin?

What resulted from the lack of trees near the copper-mining operation?

北美留学考试	英联邦留学考试	专业问答
TOEFL	IELTS	雅思专业问答
GRE	A Level	托福专业问答
GMAT	PTE	GRE专业问答
SAT	Interchange	GMAT专业问答
ACT	英本精英计划
AP/SSAT/IB
美高先修课
美本精英计划
美研精英计划