BOSTON -- A new exhibit at the Museum of Science is showing visitors how humans have altered the world's landscapes.

NewsCenter 5's David Brown reported that the photographs straddle the line between science and art. Famed photographer Edward Burtynsky has captured broad-sweeping landscapes that have been scarred by industry.

"Your initial emotional response to them is gorgeous nature photography, and yet when you look at what's in the photographs, you realize there is something else going on here," said the museum's David Rabkin.

What's going on are 12 large photographs that are magnificent in artistic scope but haunting in their composition. One photo shows the human disruption and destruction during construction of the Three Gorges Dam project in China.

Another photo shows the Kennecott Copper Mine in Utah, the world's largest manmade excavation at 2.5 miles wide and ¾ of a mile deep.

"It's kind of amazing to see human beings, you know, at work and what we do. We're very clever, but we also obviously scar the landscape in pretty impressive ways," Rabkin said.

Another photo shows mountain-sized piles of tires in California with enough tires for each man, woman and child in the United States.

"There's thousands and thousands of ways we human beings have impact on the planet. And in a geologic sense, it has all happened really fast. It's like boom all of a sudden we are this power force," Rabkin said.

One of the most dramatic photographs features a barren landscape of a nickel mine with a bright orange river running right through the middle of it.

"It's beautiful pictures, but absolutely frightening in a way that we're leaving this earth in that condition. It's kind of a shame," museum visitor John Bohl said.