Image of the Month – September 2009
Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah, USA
Started in 1906, the open pit mine is extracting copper from a large porphyry copper system. The Bingham Canyon mine is located just 16 miles southwest of Salt lake City and in 1996 it was listed on the National Historic Landmarks register where its significance is listed as being the first open-cut copper mine in the world and currently is the world’s largest man-made excavation.
The mine is currently owned and operated by Rio Tinto and in 2006, the metals produced was valued at US$1.8 billion.
This HyMap image was recorded on 12 August 2009 and is coloured to represent the LANSAT 7-4-1 band combination. HyVista Corporation was undertaking surveys in Utah, Nevada and Oregon.
Note: HyVista’s June Image of the Month was of BHPB’s Olympic Dam mine in South Australia. This mine is going to be developed and will yield an open pit larger than the Bingham Canyon mine.
