BINGHAM CANYON -- VISITING inside the Kennecott open pit mine is like seeing a mini-Grand Canyon. However, unlike the Grand Canyon, all the superlatives here are man-made. Here's a listing of some of the open pit mine's facts and figures:The mine is the largest man-made excavation on Earth at 21/2 miles wide and three-fourths of a mile deep. Some 5.5 billion tons of rock and material have been hauled away to make the giant hole where once an 8,140-foot-elevation mountain, known as "the Hill," existed.
Only two man-made objects can be seen with the naked eye from outer space. One is the Great Wall of China. The other is the Kennecott open pit mine.
Two Petronas Towers -- the world's tallest building -- stacked on top of each other, would not reach out of the mine's depths. Neither would 6 1/2 LDS Church Office Buildings. A dozen of the aircraft carrier Enterprise could be laid end-to-end across the mine's width.
The open pit mine makes its own weather pattern, and Kennecott has to have its own staff of meteorologists. For at least a few days during the average year, heavy snow or fog/temperature inversions can halt the mining process. Otherwise, mining is conducted 24 hours a day, 365 days a year here.
Some 260-320 million years ago, minerals at the Bingham Canyon mine were deposited by a volcano whose eruptions didn't break the Earth's surface.
If all the roads in the Kennecott open pit mine were stretched out, you'd have 500 miles of roadway, or enough to stretch from Salt Lake City to Denver.
Trucks originally used in the mine could haul 35 tons of ore. Today there are 360-ton trucks that essentially haul the equivalent of 720 pickup trucks per load. These trucks look like a moving house and each weighs more than a 747 jet. They haul some 550,000 tons per day out of the mine, cost $2.9 million each and boast 2,800 horsepower. Each truck tire costs $24,000 and only lasts about nine months. There are 61 haulage trucks used in the mine.
The first Kennecott shovels could grab four tons per scoop. Today, it's 96 tons per scoop. There are 12 electric shovels in the mine, each costing $8 million and weighing 2.5 million pounds.
Each shovel and truck relies on global positioning satellites and a computerized dispatch system.
During World War II, one-third of the Allied forces' copper came from Kenn-
ecott. Today, 18 percent of America's copper comes from the mine. The open pit is the nation's No. 1 source for copper, with more than 15 million tons of total copper having been extracted in about 94 years.
Kennecott is also the eighth-largest U.S. gold producer, mining 500,000 ounces a year as a sidelight to its copper process. For silver mining, Kennecott is also in the top four with some 4 million to 5 million ounces a year mined.
Today's copper yield is low-grade, with only 12 pounds of copper in each ton of ore. For every ton of ore removed, about 2 tons of overburden must be removed first to gain access to the ore.
The open pit was designed to be earthquake-resistant, and Kennecott officials believe it could withstand a quake in the 6-7 range on the Richter Scale.
Kennecott's Garfield Smokestack, built in 1978 and located west of Magna and visible from I-80 on the north end of the Oquirrhs, is 1,215 feet high or almost the height of the Empire State Building. Modern pollution control methods make its extreme height unnecessary. However, it is cost-prohibitive for Kennecott to tear it down and replace it with a much shorter stack.
Approximately 82 million gallons of water are sprayed on Kennecott's roads each year to keep dust under control.
Kennecott has spent $300 million in reclamation work around its property, with much of the original damage being caused by mining before Kennecott came along.
All 26 underground water drainages across Kennecott's property have been sealed to halt the release of contaminated water out of the area. It reuses the captured water in its mining processes.
Sizable populations of deer, elk, mountain lions and other wildlife live on Kennecott's property. Deer are frequently seen from portions of the mine, apparently unfazed by the mining work and noise.
Some 20,000 people lived in Bingham Canyon, Copperton and the surrounding area during its residential heyday of the 1920s, making it then the state's fourth-largest population center, behind Salt Lake City, Ogden and Provo.