Today there was a choice to be made, we could either enjoy a free day sightseeing and shopping in Salt Lake City or we could go on an optional visit to the Great Salt Lake itself. Not being terribly keen on shopping (I may have mentioned this before) and being so close to the Lake it seemed a shame not to take this opportunity.
Posted in Beaches, Childhood, History, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, USA
Tagged Bingham Copper Mine, Coney Island, Great Salt Lake, Life, Photography, Salt Lake City, Saltair, Travel, Utah
The Kennecott copper mine in Bingham Canyon is an open pit mine extracting a large copper deposit a short distance southwest of Salt Lake City.
The mine has been in production since 1906 and has resulted in the creation of a pit over one thousand, two hundred metres deep and four kilometres wide. And before they started mining here this used to be a mountain! It is quite simply the largest open pit copper mine in the world, it is visible from outer space and believe me is one mother of a big hole. It would fit Mount Snowdon quite comfortably and if you dropped Ben Nevis inside there would only be about a hundred metres left sticking out the top! That’s big!
Over its life, Bingham Canyon has proven to be one of the world’s most productive mines and since mining began ore from the mine has yielded more than seventeen million tons of copper, which is more than any other copper mine in the world.
Posted in History, Natural Environment, Travel, USA
Tagged Bingham Copper Mine, Great Salt Lake, Life, Photography, Salt Lake City, Saltair, Travel, Utah
Have Bag, Will Travel 