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Bingham Canyon

United States · North America

Bingham Canyon

The largest excavation made by people.

Bingham Canyon Mine (1) - Salt Lake County, Utah - May 11, 2012 · David Ratledge · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Copper · primaryGold · by-productMolybdenum · by-productSilver · by-product

What this place is

Bingham Canyon is 1.2 km deep and 4 km across, visible from orbit, and has produced more copper than any other single mine in history.

Grade. Low grade, mined at enormous scale for over a century.
A porphyry copper system, in cross-section
open pit leached and oxide cap supergene enrichment — the richest zone primary sulfide: chalcopyrite in fractures the intrusion that drove it 0 m~300 m ~1 km
A body of magma cools a few kilometres down, cracks the rock above it, and drives metal-bearing fluids up through the fractures. The result is a huge, low-grade volume rather than a rich vein — which is why porphyry mines are enormous open pits. Schematic. Real systems are 1–5 km across and the zones grade into each other rather than sitting in neat bands. Original diagram, The Materials Atlas.
“Grade” is the percentage of the useful stuff in the rock. A copper mine at 0.5% grade throws away 199 tonnes of rock for every tonne of copper it sells. That single number decides whether an orebody is a mine or just an interesting piece of geology.

What comes out

Copper

Copper

The reddish metal that carries electricity better than anything except silver, and which humans have been smelting…

PrimaryCu
Gold

Gold

The metal that does not tarnish, does not corrode and never runs out once mined — which is why almost all of it ever…

By-productAu
Molybdenum

Molybdenum

A silvery metal added to steel so it keeps its strength at high temperature and under pressure.

By-productMo
Silver

Silver

The best electrical conductor there is, and the metal that has been used as money for longer than almost anything…

By-productAg

A “by-product” is a metal recovered because it happens to be in the same rock, not because anyone went looking for it. Its supply therefore follows the primary metal’s economics, not its own.

Who owns it

CompanyRoleInterest
Rio Tinto MinerOwner-operator

As publicly reported by the operators. Ownership of large mines changes; verify against current company filings before relying on it.

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