#monzonite

[interdimensionalvoid]

HOW AM I JUST NOW REALIZING THAT THE CRAGNONS ARE NAMED AFTER ROCKS

[earthstory]

Earth's Biggest Hole, Seen from Space

There is an oft-cited rumor that the Great Wall of China is the only manmade structure that can be seen from space. Although technically you can see this structure from extraterrestrial heights (albeit with great difficulty), there are actually a host of other manmade structures that are much more clearly visible—cities, large buildings, man-made islands, and mines, especially this mine—the Bingham Canyon Mine in Salt Lake City, UT.

This is largest open-pit mine in the world. What was once a foothill of the Oquirrh Mountains is now a hole 6.4 km (4 miles) across and so deep that two of the Sears Tower in Chicago could be stacked on top of each other and fit inside. Nearly half a million tons of material are removed from this mine daily and processed for copper as well as gold, silver, and molybdenum.

This mine, first opened in 1906, has produced more copper than any other mine to date. The mine’s copper-bearing rock, named the Bingham Stock, is quartz monzonite—an intrusive igneous rock that, despite its misleading name, is very similar to granite except it contains much less quartz and equal proportions of plagioclase and potassium feldspar. Quartz monzonite is often associated with porphyry ore deposits, which are the result of intruding magma bodies. Superheated water is expelled from crystallizing magma and travels through fractures or mixes with meteoric water. This water contains a high concentration of dissolved ore minerals, which then precipitate in the surrounding rock, often creating profitable mineral deposits like this one.

The Bingham Canyon Mine is both a stunning feat of human engineering as well as a sobering reminder of the cost of modernization and what we owe to the natural world around us.

-CM

Photo credit: NASA https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=ISS015&roll=E&frame=29867 For more information about this mine: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/8144/bingham-canyon-mine-utah For more information on how satellite images can be used for mining: https://www.micromine.com/satellite-imagery-in-mineral-exploration-part-1/

[glastocycles]

#repost @makeevansgreatagain ・・・ Out on this beaut today @pinnaclebikes #Monzonite #steel #singlespeed #fixie #makingevansgreatagain https://www.instagram.com/p/B7BwE6AgOBY/?igshid=wh5xut2hjz15

[earthstory]

A 9 million Seat Stadium?

Bingham Canyon Mine, located south west of Salt Lake City, Utah, is the worlds deepest open-pit mine, if it was a football stadium it would seat 9 million people!

A working mine since 1906 and still an active mine, operations at Bingham Canyon concentrate on extracting a large porphyry copper deposit.

Currently the mine measures 1.2km deep and 4km wide, with unconfirmed plans by Rio Tinto (who currently own the mine) to extend the pit 305m to the south, this would keep the pit in production till at least the 2030's. Data released in 2004 shows that the mine has yielded 15.4Mt of copper, 715t of gold, 5,900t of silver and 386kt of molybdenum.

The ore body at Bingham Canyon Mine is a copper porphyry formed from a quartz monzonite porphyry that has been intruded in to sedimentary rocks. The sandstones, quartzites and limestones that make up the oldest rocks at Bingham Canyon were deposited 300ma during the Carboniferous period. Tectonic activity that started in the early Cretaceous and continued into the early Palaeocene (135ma-60ma) caused extensive folding and faulting resulting in the Oquirrh Mountains. Then the final piece of the puzzle comes with massive igneous intrusions occurring around 40ma (Late Eocene) causing the start of the mineralisation process. The mineralisation process occured as a result of super-heated, super-saturated fluids being forced through fissures in the rocks. When the fluids cooled they deposited massive mineral deposits and these are the deposits being mined today.

-LL

Links; http://www.kennecott.com/

http://www.infomine.com/minesite/minesite.asp?site=bingham

http://www.onlineutah.com/oquirrhmountainshistory.shtml

http://www.mining-technology.com/projects/bingham/

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=26672

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=8144

http://www.kennecott.com/library/media/TeacherGuide.pdf

Image; Andreas Feininger

[tethysresort]

Inspired by a poll, everyone who follows me gets to look at a rock per day for the month of October! 

Day 10: Today’s rock is a monzonite.  Monzonite is a type of intrusive igneous rock.  But the type of rock isn’t as important in this case as where it came from!  This rock was picked up from the tailings pile of a gold mined named the Duplex Mine in Searchlight, Nevada.  The Duplex Mine created a gold rush that built the town of Searchlight into a town larger than Las Vegas at that time.  (LOL, 1500 people in Searchlight vs 800 in Las Vegas in 1910.)  Then, the mine played out, and the town dwindled away into a semi-abandoned ghost town surrounded by mine shafts and abandoned claims. 

The blue/green in the rock is copper that was mined along with the gold. 

[glastocycles]

#repost @makeevansgreatagain ・・・ @darkstarbrewco @pinnaclebikes #Monzonite #photoshoot #makingevansgreatagain https://www.instagram.com/p/B7Ef3EkAuWo/?igshid=1lfqd23epr3tf