On Monday we (three couples from Saskatoon) went for a drive in the country and decided to see if we could find a copper mine that was in the area. (We started out going tothe casino in Globe.) the copper mine was a bit of a drive but we found it south of Globe which is east of Mesa.
This is what the country looked like on the way.
After asking one of the locals, we found our way to the copper mine operated by Asarco. They had a visitors' viewing area and we were fortunate to arrive there while a man who worked looking for gems and crystals happened to be there. He may have been a geologist, I think.) He was telling the person he came with about copper mining but he soon had an audience of about 10 so he talked to us all. From what I understood, you can mine copper by taking it out as an ore on trucks or you can use acid to make a slurry of it that you pipe to a processing facility. This mine had both. I think which process you use depends on the formation that the copper is in. If I had better internet access, I woud have looked this up for you but as it is, I can barely get the pictures to upload. (Did you ever see an upload progress bar move backward??)
Sorry the quality isn't better. The little dots are huge trucks that carry 300 tons of ore at a time! The "steps"are each 50-60 feet high. Dalton counted 18 steps in one place.
I will try to upload another picture. The slowness is excruciating!!
No luck so I will have to try again next time.
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