| OCR Text |
Show Bingham Copper Mine Is a "See Utah" Must (Editor's Note: This is another In a series of "See Utah" articles designed to better acquaint Utahns with their home state. The articles havo tieen prepared by the Utah Tourist and Publicity Publici-ty Council.) A hole in the ground doesn't seem to be much of a tourist attraction. at-traction. But this is no ordinary hole in the ground this Is perhaps per-haps the biggest man-made hole In the world. This Is the Ktnneoott Copper Corporation's Bingham Copper Mine. This is also one of the most fantastic mining operations in! the world. To "See Utah" one must see this mammoth amphitheater which is the first open pit mine in the copper industry. In fact, the Bingham Canyon mine Is the largest single mining min-ing project man has ever undertaken. under-taken. It has produced more copper than any individual mine in history his-tory and its by-products of gold and molydenum (a metal important im-portant in making steel) make it the second .largest producer of these metals in the country. The mine is vast. The excavation excava-tion area, for example, covers more than 1,000 acres and at its widest point it is about two miles from rim to rim. The pit is so large that it would take nine ships the size! of the Queen Mary, end-to-end, to reach across its widest dimension; dimen-sion; and it is so deep the Empire Em-pire State Building, television tower and all, would reach only three-fourth of the way up the mine's west rim. This is a mountain turned inside-out. Great spiral steps or benches run completely around the sloping sides of the huge im-phi-thtatcr, like whorls on the thumb print of a giant. Standard-guage ore trains they look like tops from the rim scurry like ants in slow motion mo-tion along the benches. Power shovels as high as a three-story building are difficult diffi-cult to identify. Entrance to the mine is through the city of Bingham Canyon, an historic mining community com-munity that crowds the narrow walls of the canyon. Bingham itself it-self is fast turning into a ghost town as the edges of the mine keep expanding, eating everything every-thing in their way. Sandard guage railroad tracks J used for transporting ore and waste material line both sides of the canyon above the homes, j The mining area itself requires about 170 miles of tracks. Because Be-cause the amount of material handled daily is so huge, the haulage systems normally has a greater volume than most of the larger rairoads in the word. Since the mine was started 56 years ago, more than two billion tons of ore and waste materal have been removed. To remove this waste each afternoon at about 4 p. m. parts of the mountainside moun-tainside are blasted away to shake loose the copper ore. During each operating day about 27,000 tons of ore and waste must be blasted, loaded and transported a classic example ex-ample of mass mining practices. Ueo'ogtsts estimate the Bin-ham Bin-ham Canyon mine had its origin some GO million years ago when mountains were formed by the folding and uplifting of sedimentary sedi-mentary rocks. ' And after it was discovered, when new and radical departures depar-tures from accepted mining practices were inaugurated, this increditable hole in the ground consistently has been an attraction. attrac-tion. Its history, its amazing production produc-tion records and its sheer phy-I phy-I sical magnitude have set it apart from other large mines in the world. |
