Chile's huge open-pit copper mine goes underground
Chile's huge open-pit copper mine goes underground
Associated Press
Posted on October 11, 2012 at 2:02 PM
Updated today at 2:05 PM
CHUQUICAMATA, Chile (AP) — From above, it looks like a colossal amphitheater carved from rock, or the vast crater from a meteorite that crashed into Chile's Atacama desert ages ago.
Inside the world's largest open-pit copper mine, dump trucks as big as two-story houses work around the clock to haul hundreds of tons of rock and minerals 2,790 feet (850 meters) to the surface of this elliptical, seemingly endless, man-made hole.
But the open pit has run its course at Chuquicamata — the storied mine that awoke the political awareness of a young Ernesto "Che" Guevara in the 1950s, inspired Marxist President Salvador Allende to nationalize the copper industry in 1971 and generated decades of prosperity for Chile.
After a century of exploitation, Chuquicamata has become too big, too deep and too old to continue digging in the open-pit method. The giant trucks that carry copper ore each guzzle 819 gallons (3,100 liters) of fuel a day driving 7 miles (11 kilometers) to the surface with ever-poorer loads as ore grades decline and copper yields fall.
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Chuquicamata [/center]
It's just south-west of downtown Salt Lake City in the mountains west of the city.
