Bingham Canyon Mine

Bingham Canyon Mine

Mine in 2003
Location
Bingham Canyon Mine
Location	Salt Lake County
State	Utah
Country	United States
Coordinates	40°31′23″N 112°09′04″W / 40.523°N 112.151°W / 40.523; -112.151
Production
Products	Copper
Type	Open-pit
History
Discovered	1848
Opened	1906 (1906)
Owner
Company	Rio Tinto Group
Bingham Canyon Open Pit Copper Mine
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Area	900 hectares
NRHP reference No.	66000736
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	November 13, 1966[1]
Designated NHL	November 13, 1966[2]

The Bingham Canyon Mine, more commonly known as Kennecott Copper Mine among locals,^[3] is an open-pit mining operation extracting a large porphyry copper deposit southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, in the Oquirrh Mountains. The mine is the largest human-made excavation, and deepest open-pit mine in the world,^[4][5] which is considered to have produced more copper than any other mine in history – more than 19,000,000 short tons (17,000,000 long tons; 17,000,000 t).^[5] The mine is owned by Rio Tinto Group, a British-Australian multinational corporation. The copper operations at Bingham Canyon Mine are managed through Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation which operates the mine, a concentrator plant, a smelter, and a refinery. The mine has been in production since 1906, and has resulted in the creation of a pit over 0.75 miles (1,210 m) deep,^[5] 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, and covering 1,900 acres (3.0 sq mi; 770 ha; 7.7 km²). It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 under the name Bingham Canyon Open Pit Copper Mine.^[2] The mine experienced a massive landslide in April 2013 and a smaller slide in September 2013.^[6]