Space Mountain

Kennecott Open Pit Mine

Linda Burton posting from Salt Lake City, Utah – The claim is that only two man-made creations on Earth are visible from the Space Shuttle – the Great Wall of China and the Kennecott Open Pit Mine in Utah. We have an image in mind of The Great Wall, so our imagination begins to stretch to visualize just how BIG an open-pit mine would be to be visible from outer space. It is two and three-fourth miles across, and three-fourths of a mile deep; set a Sears Tower at the bottom, stack another one on top of that, and they would not reach the top. The official name of this big hole is Kennecott Utah Copper’s Bingham Canyon Mine and here’s another boggler – it has produced more copper than any mine on earth; about 19 million tons so far, and still going strong. Heavens sake, what do we do with all that copper? » read more