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The Bingham Canyon Mine is an open-pit mine extracting a large porphyry copper deposit southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, in the Oquirrh Mountains. It is owned by Rio Tinto plc through Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation which operates the mine, a concentrator and a smelter. The mine has been in production since 1906, and has resulted in the creation of a pit over 0.75 miles deep, 2.5 miles wide, and covering 1,900 acres. According to Kennecott, it is the world's largest man-made excavation.[1] El Chino, located near Silver City, New Mexico, is an open-pit copper mine Open-pit mining, or opencast mining, refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow. ...
Porphyry copper deposits are copper orebodies which are associated with porphyritic intrusive rocks. ...
The Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Salt Lake Citys top tourist draw. ...
Official language(s) English Capital Salt Lake City Largest city Salt Lake City Area Ranked 13th - Total 84,876 sq mi (219,887 km²) - Width 270 miles (435 km) - Length 350 miles (565 km) - % water 3. ...
Rio Tinto is a multinational mining and resources group founded originally in 1873 to mine the copper ores found in southern Spain at the site of an ancient mine which supplied the Roman Empire. ...
Kennecott Copper Corporation had its start when Enos A. Wall realized the potential of copper deposits in Bingham Canyon in Utah in 1887 and acquired claims to the land. ...
Bingham Canyon Mine, April 2005. Over its life, Bingham Canyon has proven to be one of the world's most productive mines. As of 2004, ore from the mine has yielded more than than 17 million tons of copper, 23 million ounces of gold, 190 million ounces of silver, and 850 million pounds of molybdenum. The value of these resources is greater than the Comstock Lode, Klondike, and California gold rush mining regions combined. Cumulatively, Bingham Canyon has produced more copper than any other mine in the world, although mines in Chile, Arizona, and New Mexico now exceed Bingham Canyon's annual production rate. High molybdenum prices in 2005 made the molybdenum produced at Bingham Canyon in that year worth even more than the copper.[2] The value of the metal produced in 2006 at Bingham Canyon was $1.8 billion dollars.[3] Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixels Full resolution (1600 × 1200 pixel, file size: 878 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah, April 2005 Taken by Tim Jarrett I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or...
Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixels Full resolution (1600 × 1200 pixel, file size: 878 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah, April 2005 Taken by Tim Jarrett I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or...
GOLD refers to one of the following: GOLD (IEEE) is an IEEE program designed to garner more student members at the university level (Graduates of the Last Decade). ...
General Name, Symbol, Number silver, Ag, 47 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11, 5, d Appearance lustrous white metal Standard atomic weight 107. ...
General Name, Symbol, Number molybdenum, Mo, 42 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 6, 5, d Appearance gray metallic Standard atomic weight 95. ...
Miner working in the Comstock Lode The Comstock Lode was the first major U.S. deposit of silver ore, discovered under what is now Virginia City, Nevada on the eastern slope of Mt. ...
Klondike may refer to one of the following: The Klondike region in the Yukon Territory of Canada Klondike, a popular solitaire card game. ...
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered at Sutters Mill. ...
Official language(s) English Capital Phoenix Largest city Phoenix Area Ranked 6th - Total 113,998 sq mi (295,254 km²) - Width 310 miles (500 km) - Length 400 miles (645 km) - % water 0. ...
Capital Santa Fe Largest city Albuquerque Area Ranked 5th - Total 121,665 sq mi (315,194 km²) - Width 342 miles (550 km) - Length 370 miles (595 km) - % water 0. ...
General Name, Symbol, Number molybdenum, Mo, 42 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 6, 5, d Appearance gray metallic Standard atomic weight 95. ...
The mine is regarded as one of the most up-to-date integrated copper operations in the world, employing 1,400 people. The smelting and refining facilities are recognised as being among the world's best for environmental protection practice and achievement.
The infrastructure required for an operation this size is impressive. 450,000 tons of material are removed from the mine daily. Electric shovels can carry up to 56 cubic yards or 98 tons of ore in a single scoop. Ore is loaded into a fleet of 64 very large dump trucks which each carry 255 tons of ore at a time, at a cost of approximately $3 million per truck. There is a five mile series of conveyors that take ore to the Copperton concentrator and flotation plant. The longest conveyor is 2.5 miles long and passes through an existing railroad tunnel inside the mine.
Rio Tinto committed US$170 million to the East 1 pushback project, which will extend the life of the open pit at Bingham Canyon until 2013. Various open-pit and underground alternatives will also be considered after that.
History
Minerals were first discovered in Bingham Canyon in 1850, but it was not until 1863 that extraction began and the potential of the canyon's mineral resources began to be widely recognized. At first, mining was difficult due to the area's rugged terrain, but a railroad reached the canyon in 1873, prompting greatly-increased mining activity and accompanying settlement. The canyon's nineteenth-century mines were relatively small, however, and it was not until 1898 that plans for very large-scale exploitation of the canyon's ore bodies began to develop. That year, Samuel Newhouse and Thomas Weir formed the Boston Consolidated Mining Company, intending to increase mine development in the canyon. A more significant development took place in 1903, when Daniel C. Jackling and Enos A. Wall organized the Utah Copper Company. Utah Copper immediately began construction of a pilot mill at Copperton, just beyond the mouth of the canyon, and the company actually started mining in 1906. Utah Copper and Boston Consolidated merged in 1910. The Kennecott Copper Corporation, established in 1903 to operate mines in Kennecott, Alaska purchased a financial interest in Utah Copper in 1915 and fully acquired the company in 1936. Samuel Irving Newhouse (1895 - 1979) was a U.S. broadcasting businessman, magazine and newspaper publisher. ...
Daniel Cowan Jackling (August 14, 1869 - March 13, 1956), was an American mining and metallurgical engineer who pioneered the exploitation of low-grade porphyry copper ores at Bingham Canyon, Utah. ...
Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation is a mining, smelting, and refining company. ...
Copperton is a a small mining town located in Salt Lake County, Utah. ...
Kennicott, Alaska is an abandoned town that was the center of activity for several copper mines. ...
The Bingham Canyon mine expanded rapidly, and by the 1920s the region was a beehive of activity. Some 15,000 people of widely-varying ethnicity lived in the canyon, in large residential communities constructed on the steep canyon walls. The population declined rapidly as mining techniques improved, however, and several of the mining camps began to be swallowed up by the ever-expanding mine. By 1980, when Lark was dismantled, only Copperton, at the mouth of Bingham Canyon and with a population of 800, remained. Today, mining operations continue at full-swing in the mine, and it is now among the largest open-pit mines in the world. Work to expand the mine 600 feet east began in 2005, continuing to increase its size, growth, and capabilities. Copperton is a a small mining town located in Salt Lake County, Utah. ...
Visiting the mine Kennecott maintains a visitor center and mine overlook above the mine, at 6700 ft. elevation. Open daily from 8AM to 8PM, April 1 to October 31. There is a small admission charge (no charge for school tours). The mine is about a half-hour drive from Salt Lake City. Details and map
See also Daniel Cowan Jackling (August 14, 1869 - March 13, 1956), was an American mining and metallurgical engineer who pioneered the exploitation of low-grade porphyry copper ores at Bingham Canyon, Utah. ...
Kennecott Copper Corporation had its start when Enos A. Wall realized the potential of copper deposits in Bingham Canyon in Utah in 1887 and acquired claims to the land. ...
References - ^ Kennecott's Bingham Canyon Mine Visitors Center Website Accessed May 3, 2007
- ^ R.L. Bon and K.A. Krahulec, Utah, Mining Engineering, May 2006, p.117.
- ^ R.L. Bon and K.A. Krahulec, Utah, Mining Engineering, May 2007, p.120.
- Kennecott Utah Copper Mine brochure (distributed to visitors), dated September 2004.
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