Dr J
  • Dr J
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12 years ago
Not sure if anyone else has heard of this landslide a few days ago at the Kennecotte/Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah, largest man-made hole in the world...

They have a bit of dirt to shift now....like 1.5 million tonnes, estimated :ohmygod:

Also looks to be the most expensive landslide ever, given the millions of $'s worth of dump trucks, plant, rope shovels etc all buried..

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=24748916&nid=148 

Interesting how all the media is playing it, that it was anticipated for couple of months, no-one was injured, and the mine is *already* working again... Can't help thinking things would be little different if it had happened over here, like just a *few* questions being asked...i.e. wtf?! :glare:

J
Over-ground, underground, wombling free...
agricola
12 years ago
There are some really great images on the Bingham canyon Facebook page.

There is plenty of info on kenecott website. Whatever you think it's some slide and some amount of material which has moved.

I'll and post some links tomorrow
If it can't be grown it has to be mined.
Grumpytramp
12 years ago
As usual in cases of large scale slope failure Dave Petley (Professor of Hazard and Risk -Department of Geography, Durham University) has a report of this incident on his excellent 'The Landslide Blog' here:

http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2013/04/16/is-the-bingham-canyon-copper-mine-landslide-the-most-expensive-single-mass-movement-in-history/ 

[The Landslide Blog -
http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/  ]

There is a link to some really dramatiic photographs here:

http://imgur.com/gallery/Btvfi 

The buried dumptrucks fourth photographs are probably some of the 64 Caterpillar 797 dumptrucks (255 tonnes capacity) operated by Kennecott!
Dr J
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12 years ago
Never mind the dump trucks, its this image that sums up for me the kit involved-there's a better, close-up clip on the TV footage...

http://www.barnorama.com/wp-content/images/2012/03/massive_landslide/06-massive_landslide.jpg 

If anything like the machinery I've seen at the Superpit in Australia then this rope shovel is (was) about 4 storeys high-now almost totally buried :ohmygod:

Gonna be one hell of an insurance bill... 'Errr, is that Direct Line? I'd like to make a claim please....' :lol:

J
Over-ground, underground, wombling free...
droid
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12 years ago
Is that a drilling rig on the right in your photo?
Morlock
12 years ago
"droid" wrote:

Is that a drilling rig on the right in your photo?



Certainly looks like one, complete with two rows of hole borings heaps.
Roy Morton
12 years ago
Now that will take some barring down to make that safe 😮
"You Chinese think of everything!"
"But I''m not Chinese!"
"Then you must have forgotten something!"
Dr J
  • Dr J
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12 years ago
"droid" wrote:

Is that a drilling rig on the right in your photo?



Yup it is indeed, looks like working on boreholes for blasting of that quarry bench... Even though they were anticipating the slide work didn't cease/evacuation of the pit occur until 11:30am on the same day, so all activity had been continuing up until that point as normal-drilling, muck clearing etc...

Damn lucky the mountain decided to give them plenty of time to get out really, otherwise it wouldn't just be machinery buried down there... :ohmygod:

J
Over-ground, underground, wombling free...
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