Moving Mountains

We are currently in Salt Lake City for a few days.  Yesterday we visited the Kennecott or Bingham Canyon Copper Mine, one of the largest open-pit mines in the world and the world's greatest producer of copper.  The mine produces other minerals as well,  including silver, gold, and molybdenum.

Everything at this mine is done on a large scale.  Here I am standing in front of one of the tires used on the mine's dump trucks.

And here are a couple of those dump trucks, from a distance.  Note the average-sized truck just in front of the massive dump truck.  The average truck is smaller than the tires of the big dump truck!  Each of these trucks can carry up to 330 tons of rock. Amazing.

The mine itself is 2 1/2 miles across at the top.  I could not capture it all in a single photo, since I do not have a wide-angle lens.  First is the left side, then the right side, then the bottom:

Note the flattened mountains on the top left, below:

The mine is 3/4 of a mile deep:

 
I read that, 2 to 4 times a day, explosives are set off to loosen bedrock to keep up with production schedules.  We actually were there for one such explosion.  It looked like an implosion more than an explosion, to be honest.  Here is a photo of the explosion before it took place.  Look at the wall behind the large crane:

After the implosion, the bedrock has been reduced to rubble, below.  Now the excavator can start loading dump trucks again, with its giant bucket that can grab up to a ton of rocks at a time:

I took a movie of the explosion, if you care to watch.  Wait for about 40 seconds for the explosives to ignite, then watch the dust and hillside slide.  The implosion shook dust loose from above and below the targeted hillside.  Note that the trucks in the foreground have been instructed to stop while the event takes place.

Click here for YouTube video.

The trucks take their loads to two different places.  Those trucks which have mineral-rich rock take their loads to a cruncher, which grinds the rock into smaller pieces then moves the ore on a conveyor belt that moves through a tunnel to a processing plant on the other side of the mountain; other trucks, filled with unusable bedrock, take their loads to a dumping site near, but outside of, the big whole in the ground.  Bedrock over the "ore core" has to be removed to get at the mineral-rich rock. Here are a couple of those trucks dumping their load:

 

Inside the Visitor's Center was a photo taken from above the mine, which shows more of the surrounding mountains.  What I find most interesting about this photo is how the mountain tops surrounding the mine have been flattened; and how the surrounding canyons are being filled in with excess non-usable bedrock.

The mining of this mountain started on an industrial scale in 1906, so it has taken over 100 years to get to where it is now.   I took several photos as we drove away of the bedrock dumped over the outside edges of the mountain for the last century.  Of the mining operation, this is what is most visible to those who live in the area:

Now you know what I mean by "Moving Mountains"!