Today we drove about an hour south to tour the Rio Tinto Kennecott Copper Mine. As we are home over the winter planning next year's adventures we write down places we find that we want to visit and things we want to see. Doreen seems to think we saw something on the Discovery Channel about this mine and it looked really interesting. Sure enough, it was!
A distant view of one side of the mine pit tailings
The Rio Tinto Kennecott Copper Mine is located in Bingham Canyon, Utah near Salt Lake City. It is the largest open-pit mine in North America and it is also known as the “Biggest Pit in the World,” because it is the largest man-made excavation in the world. It can be seen from space, not unlike the Grand Canyon. According to their web site, the mine covers about twenty-seven thousand acres, is half a mile deep, and two and a half miles wide. It is massive!! It runs twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year rain or shine. It primarily produced copper, in fact it is the second largest copper produced in the United States and one of the largest in the world. Besides copper they also harvest gold, silver, molybdenum and tellurium which is a critical element of solar panels and lithium batteries. A byproduct of their processes also produces about a million tons of sulfuric acid per year
The history of this mine dates back to 1848 when two Mormon brothers, Sanford and Thomas Bingham, discovered copper while grazing their cattle in the canyon. The mine was established in 1906 by Kennecott Utah Copper. Rio Tinto bought the mine in 1989.
We reported to the "Mine Experience" center which is basically a souvenir shop run by the local Lion's Club and a gathering point to board the shuttle buses that transport you to a mine overlook area. We had tickets for the 1130 hrs ride, but we arrived early and were allowed to board the 1100 hrs bus.
Inside the bus headed up to the mine overlook.
The ride up provided a great view of the conveyer system
This was a first view into the mine
We arrived at the mine overlook area which is one two levels. The upper level is where the bus stops and lets you off. There is a viewing area and a display area set up inside the cargo area of a huge dump truck. They use 240-ton and 320 ton capacity haul trucks, powered by 2300-2500 hp engines.
The tires used on the haul trucks are Michelin 53/80R63 XDR3 and they weigh 10,633 lbs each. They are about 12.5 ft tall and their are six on each truck. The internal volume of the tire is 2000 gallons and it can roll one mile in only 142 revolutions! Each tire contains over 2000 lbs of steel and 30 different kinds of rubber totaling 8000 lbs of rubber. Translating that, you could make 500 passenger car tires from the materials in one of these tires! Massive!!
Interesting how they use a 9-layer system of protection from mineslides, which are of course a huge concern. On the upper level is a very precise radar system of monitoring static and dynamic earth movements which can predict landslides in the mine. They also use a long-range and high resolution 220+ prism system, subsurface monitoring, seismic monitoring, and other systems. Incredible!
There was a massive mineslide in April 2013. Because of their advanced planning and monitoring, no one was injured.
These are all "tailings", the waste from the mining process
We proceeded to the lower level of the mine overlook which is a walkway along the edge of the mine. On this level we had a mine employee who was answering questions and giving us information of all aspects of the mine, plus some more equipment displays.
A view of the lower level viewing area from above.
On the lower level. The mine employee has the florescent yellow shirt on.
Soon we heard her radio talking about a blast! Wow, how lucky we were to have boarded the early bus and been here just in time to witness a blast! They blast about once a day. Here is what the mine looked like and then what the blast looked like:
Today's blast area circled in red
Watch this video! What the blast looked like!
The distant side is solid rock. Holes are drilled, filled with ammonium nitrate mixture and detonated, which turns the solid rock into rubble. The rubble is scooped up by the shovels and the trucks are loaded. The trucks transport the rubble to a crushing facility that makes the rocks smaller. They are then transported by that very long conveyer belt system to a concentrator facility that further crushes the rocks into basically a powder. It is then mixed with water ang pumped many miles to a facility near Salt Lake City that processes it, extracting the various minerals.
A shovel used to fill the trucks, that look like toys in the distance!
One of the drill bits used to bore the 12" blasting holes
The haul trucks and other vehicles use a massive amount of diesel fuel. This refueling facility was recently damaged by rainfall and resulting landslide which filled that building with 10 ft of mud.
This place is so massive it is almost beyond description! A few more pictures:
Our view is blocked by the road, but that pit is very deep!
It looks so tiny but there is a huge operation in an ore-rich copper vein here.
$22,000 of copper plates on display
A Cummins diesel engine used in the haul trucks
Doreen standing in a shovel scoop!
We are so glad we came a bit early and were here for the blasting! We walked back up to the upper level and caught the bus back to the entrance. Doreen picked up a couple items in the gift shop and then we headed back towards the campground. Dang it! About half way back, and POW! Another large rock chip in our windshield. That is #3 on this trip!
So I dropped off Doreen, grabbed a quick wrap for lunch and then headed back out to a local auto glass repair facility to get the chip fixed. As before, the repairs are only designed to keep the chip from turning into a large crack, Well, they got me right in and out. Back at the campground we fueled the truck for tomorrow's journey and then one last stop at the commissary.
Well, that was how I spent my birthday and I enjoyed it all because we are traveling and seeing this great Country and learning every day, and I am able to do that with my bride Doreen and our little Miss Liberty. It does not get any better than that!
Tomorrow we head east to Rock Springs WY for three nights and then to Cheyenne WY.
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