Mining

This is a picture I took a few years ago at a mine in Utah (the bottom picture is from Google maps). It is huge....I read some place that it could be seen from space. The big trucks look like ants running around in the bottom of the mine. How big is it...see below or look here.

• To give you some idea about the size of this mine, it’s three-quarters of a mile deep. Two Sears Tower Buildings stacked on top of each other would not reach the top of the mine. Closer to home, the mine is deeper than 6½ LDS Church Headquarters buildings.
• The mine is more than 2 3/4 miles across at the top . . . meaning that 12 aircraft carrier Enterprises could be laid end to end.
• The Bingham Canyon Mine is the largest man-made excavation on earth, and by the year 2018 it will be about 800 feet deeper than it is now.
• The north wall of the mine (to your right) is unique because it is the tallest high wall (continuous) in any mine in the world. That’s quite an engineering feat, and it’s still growing. There are thousands of miles of underground workings behind this wall.
• This mine has produced more copper than any other mine in history. More than 7 billion tons of material has been mined from here, producing more than 18 million tons of copper.
• Every day, Kennecott Utah Copper mines about 150,000 tons of copper ore and 270,000 tons of overburden . . . seven days a week, 365 days a year.