Talk:Bingham Canyon Mine

Merged articles about the mine, added one for the city
OK, I bit the bullet and finally took care of the duplicate articles about the Bingham Canyon Mine, consolidating the former Bingham Canyon and Kennecott Copper Mine articles at this location. I chose this name to avoid confusion with the former mines in Kennecott, Alaska, and because (as a former Utahn) I believe the Bingham Canyon name is in far more common use. I went with "Bingham Canyon Mine" rather than just "Bingham Canyon" to distinguish the mine from the place name and former city. (Kennecott itself also calls the place "Bingham Canyon Mine.") Finally, I created a stub article at Bingham Canyon, Utah for the former city.

The mine article definitely needs a bit of work, something evidenced in part by the fact that some of the info in the two former articles was in conflict. I may work on that a bit later, but first I have a bunch of redirects to clear up, and I want to expand the article about the former city a bit. Pitamakan 23:01, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks, looks good, a big improvement and less confusing to readers. Good work!


 * I don't think "Bingham Canyon vies with Chuquicamata in Chile for the title of world's largest open pit copper mine" squares with "Bingham Canyon ... is the third largest copper producer in the US." Perhaps just delete the first statement (leaving it the largest excavation, which may be true. Likely it's the largest single excavation -- Morenci may have moved more rock, but it's a multiple-pit mine. Cheers, Pete Tillman 19:37, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Pete! I just spent a little time rewriting the first couple of paragraphs of the article, trying to make the significance claims credible ... if you have a chance, take a look at it and see if it sounds OK.  The problem is the various qualifiers people decide to use when making claims in this arena -- annual production, cumulative production, mine acreage, or total amount of material moved.  My understanding is that Bingham Canyon remains the leader in cumulative production and the size of the pit, but it's been passed in the other categories by two or three mines each in Chile and the southwest U.S.  But it's not terribly easy to find that data, for some reason.


 * Anyhow, now the rest of this little article REALLY needs a rewrite now ... and I can't believe there's no article on Morenci in here! Take care -- Mark Pitamakan 00:48, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Mark: looks good. Thanks!


 * Eh, maybe I'll take a whack at writing up Morenci sometime. Or some of the
 * Arizona mines I've actually worked at, and know something about.... [grin]
 * Cheers, Pete Tillman 05:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've done a bit of adding up of various sources(Cochilco year books, Codelco annual reports and Yacimientos
 * Metaliferous de Chile) and found that Chuquicamata has produced at least 28 million tonnes of copper to date,
 * easily the largest cumulative copper output for one mine. I think Bingham Canyon is No 2 but Escondida is
 * catching up fast and will be No 2 in about four years Mafestel (talk) 13:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I've lived in Utah for the past 29 years less 2 years split up into a few months here and there. I can say I have never once heard Kennecott Copper Mine referred to as "Bingham Canyon Mine". Not once. Kennecott or Kennecott Copper Mine seem to be the most common names used.


 * Your personal experience is not relevant. Kennecott Utah Copper calls it the Bingham Canyon Mine on their website:


 * Kennecott Utah Copper to close the Bingham Canyon Mine Visitors Center for winter


 * --Edgewise (talk) 23:18, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I really don't care what the name of the article is, but I grew up in Utah, and I can say for a fact that the WP:COMMONNAME among locals is Kennecott Copper mine, in 15 years of living there, I also never once heard it called "Bingham Canyon Mine." I lived in Magna and West Jordan and attended copper hills H.S., just to give you an idea of just how close I was to the mine. In fact, the entire reason I decided to come to this talk page is because I knew without doubt there would be some sort of discussion regarding the name of the article. I question if Pitamakan really was a former Utahn if he says that Bingham is more commonly used, because that simply isn't true. I won't ruffle any feather by changing the name, but I would say that if we are following WP:COMMONNAME, then this article is not titled correctly. Notice, that I am not disputing the official name, it's just not the common name.


 * 1 2 3 4


 * -War wizard90 (talk) 04:30, 31 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Fair enough observation, but that poses a bit of a confusion, because, to people familiar with the copper industry, Kennecott Copper Mine refers to the original Kennecott Mines in Alaska. Apparently, we have a conflict between the common local name, and the name known to people in the mining business.  Regards.  Plazak (talk) 12:38, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Dump Trucks

 * "Ore is loaded into a fleet of 64 very large dump trucks which each carry 255 tons (231 t) of ore at a time, at a cost of approximately US$3 million per truck."

It is unclear to what the cost of $3 million refers. Is it the cost of the truck? Or value of the ore that it carries? Or the production cost of that ore? This needs to be verified and reworded in a more straightforward sentence.--Edgewise (talk) 14:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Edgewise; The reference for the information you request clarification on is in the Teacher Guide under the outside links. I fear my limited English skills would produce a sentence of similar structure. So I leave this clarification edit to you. 216.186.188.196 (talk) 21:18, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Daniel C. Jackling.gif
The image Image:Daniel C. Jackling.gif is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --19:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Biggest copper producer
According to Carlos Ruiz Fuller annd Federico Peebles, both highly respected professors in the geology and geophysics departments of the University of Chile, Chuqui's copper production to the end of 1985 was 15.7 million tonnes (Yacimientos Metaliferos de Chile). Since then it has mined an additional 13.6 million tonnes according to Cochilco (Comisión Chilena del Cobre), making a total of just over 29 million tonnes of fine copper. If you still don't believe me, in The Decline of the Copper Industry in Chile and the Entrance of North ... By Joanne Fox Przeworski, are given production figures for Chuqui up to 1930 of 1.1 million tonnes. Nevertheless, adding this tonnage to the 1986-2007 figures from Cochilco they nearly equal Bingham Canyon's claimed total. Adding in the approximate 200,000 tonnes p.a. production between those two dates gives 26.3 million tonnes. Finally, in a presentation entitled TRANSITION FROM OPEN PIT TO UNDERGROUND MINING AT CHUQUICAMATA, ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE given recently by Codelco executives in Johannesburg it was stated that Chuqui had produced by the end of the year 2005, about 2.6 billion tons of copper ore with a mean grade of 1.53% or 39.8 million tonnes of contained copper. Assuming a rather low recovery of 75%, this equates to a production of just under 30 million tonnes. Chuqui is the biggest copper producer in total, I'm afraid, and by a long way. If you disagree, please let me know.Egoli (talk) 11:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

More information needed
I reverted the last removal of a reference. A reference doesn't have to be a source for all of the information, it can be a source for just some. Fact tag anything in particular that requires additional references, or post here what you need more references to. But, please don't remove references that provide a source to part of the information, unless you're replacing it with a better reference to all of the material. --Blechnic (talk) 20:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The ref removed (by me) was a recently added ref to a webpage that did not, in fact, support any of the information in the paragraph. The ref had been added, in good faith I'm sure, by an editor in response to an {unreferenced} tag I had added to the para. sometime in the past couple of weeks.
 * Thus the situation is that the papagraph still has no verifiable source for the claims. I had thought the best option was to remove the incorrect ref completely and leave the {unref} tag on the paragraph.  Since User:Blechnic would prefer some other option, I have left in the incorrect reference and tagged it {citecheck}.  Hope that helps.  N2e (talk) 06:29, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Your comment in the edit summary was, "the ref provided does not seem to support all the facts claimed," not that the reference does "not support any of the information in the paragraph." If you remove an incorrect reference that supports no information where its attached then just say so in the edit summary and it won't be reverted.  But if you remove such a reference and say that it only supports some of the information, your edit should properly be reverted.
 * So, is the reference entirely unrelated to the paragraph? If yes, remove it and mark your edit summary appropriately.  If not, maybe you could detail what is going on here.  --Blechnic (talk) 09:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I recommned that some third party check out the reference. When I looked, it seems to link to a page about the vistor center, tour hours, etc.  I did not see any of the facts claimed in the paragraph to be on that particular webpage.  I don't have the energy/time to pursue this further on the CCM page.  So ask that someone else look at it. N2e (talk) 05:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what you are talking about or what is going on here. You removed a reference saying it only partially related to the material.  I reverted you suggesting partial references are fine, just fact tag the information that still needs referenced.  You then accused me of wanting to leave in spurious references.  Now you seem to be saying you didn't even look at the reference you removed and accused me of leaving in when it didn't reference the material!  Good gawd! --Blechnic (talk) 06:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The teachers' guide at that site contains much of the material it is cited for. Perhaps it should be replaced with a direct link.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.173.104.79 (talk) 18:26, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

File:Binghamcopperminesmithson.jpg
File:Binghamcopperminesmithson.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 01:20, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Train in photo
"A train in the background can be seen taking material to the dump." No it cannot be seen. I looked at the high resolution copy of this image, and I could not find any sign of a train in any part of the photo. So even if it is there it cannot be seen. Nick Beeson (talk) 16:12, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Blacklisted Links Found on the Main Page
Cyberbot II has detected that page contains external links that have either been globally or locally blacklisted. Links tend to be blacklisted because they have a history of being spammed, or are highly innappropriate for Wikipedia. This, however, doesn't necessarily mean it's spam, or not a good link. If the link is a good link, you may wish to request whitelisting by going to the request page for whitelisting. If you feel the link being caught by the blacklist is a false positive, or no longer needed on the blacklist, you may request the regex be removed or altered at the blacklist request page. If the link is blacklisted globally and you feel the above applies you may request to whitelist it using the before mentioned request page, or request its removal, or alteration, at the request page on meta. When requesting whitelisting, be sure to supply the link to be whitelisted and wrap the link in nowiki tags. The whitelisting process can take its time so once a request has been filled out, you may set the invisible parameter on the tag to true. Please be aware that the bot will replace removed tags, and will remove misplaced tags regularly.

Below is a list of links that were found on the main page:


 * http://www.mining-technology.com/projects/bingham/
 * Triggered by  on the local blacklist

If you would like me to provide more information on the talk page, contact User:Cyberpower678 and ask him to program me with more info.

From your friendly hard working bot.— cyberbot II NotifyOnline 10:30, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

✅ This issue has been resolved, and I have therefore removed the tag, if not already done. No further action is necessary.— cyberbot II NotifyOnline 20:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Largest man-made excavation?
I see someone added this claim (with a weakish cite). IB Chuquicamata is tha largest by volume of material removed (roughly 9 billion cubic metres), although Bingham is deeper. See What's the biggest man-made hole in the world?. --Pete Tillman (talk) 21:20, 6 March 2016 (UTC), mining geologist

I go along with Chuquicamata being the largest open pit by volume as it started life as a hill. Bingham Canyon started life in a depression (the clue is in the name) and has had to bench up the surrounding hills to maintain the correct pit slope. This gives a misleading impression of the rock that has been removed and exaggerates amount of rock that has been removed.Egoli (talk) 14:22, 13 July 2017 (UTC) Egoli (talk) 14:22, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Not well expressed but you get what I meanEgoli (talk) 14:23, 13 July 2017 (UTC) Egoli (talk) 14:23, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Bingham Canyon Mine. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090323092954/http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=552&ResourceType=Site to http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=552&ResourceType=Site
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130927014324/http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/second-landslide-hits-rio-s-bingham-canyon-mine-10 to http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/second-landslide-hits-rio-s-bingham-canyon-mine-10
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131003083232/http://me.smenet.org/webContent.cfm?webarticleid=645 to http://me.smenet.org/webContent.cfm?webarticleid=645

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:22, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Area of the pit
I have measured the open pit with Google Earth. I can't tell the limits with precision just by looking at the image, but in any case I can guarantee it's much larger than 7,7 km2 --Jbaranao (talk) 11:31, 8 August 2019 (UTC)