The impoundment area for waste materials associated with the Escondida Copper Mine in Chile is centered in this astronaut photograph from December 9, 2009.
Located in the Sudirman Mountains of the Irian Jaya province of Indonesia, the Grasberg complex is one of the largest gold and copper mining operations in the world.
The Bingham Canyon Mine is one of the largest open-pit mines in the world, measuring over 4 kilometers wide and 1,200 meters deep. Mining first began in Bingham Canyon in the late nineteenth century, when shafts were sunk to remove gold, silver, and lead deposits that played out by the early 1900s. It would take the advent of open-pit mining in 1899 to turn the Bingham copper deposit into an economically favorable resource.
Although this photograph may appear to be a small pit mine as seen from the air, it is actually a pit mine that is about a mile wide and just over a thousand feet deep as photographed by astronauts orbiting the Earth on board the International Space Station. The New Cornelia Mine is located just south of Ajo, Arizona. Small-scale mining of copper in this area began with the Spaniards and Mexicans as early as 1750. This large-scale, systematic operation began in 1912 and expanded rapidly for the next 50 years. Since the mid 1980s, activity has been limited because of low prices for copper on the world market. Note the tailings deposits to the east (right) and the larger containment ponds for extraction processes to the northeast.
The rugged, mineral-rich Andes support some of the world’s biggest mines (gold, silver, copper, and more). This image looks down the bullseye of Peru’s Toquepala copper mine, a steep sided and stepped open-pit mine.
otswana ranks first among the world’s gem-quality diamond producers, and diamond mining makes up 70 percent of the nation’s export revenue. The Jwaneng Diamond Mine, in south-central Botswana, sits atop the convergence of three kimberlite pipes—diamond-rich geologic formations. Because the pipes meet just below the surface and cover some 520,000 square meters (128.5 acres) at ground level, the diamonds are mined from an open pit rather than a mine tunneled below the surface.
Mined for gold, silver, and copper, the region of Butte, Montana, had already earned the nickname of “The Richest Hill on Earth” by the end of the 19th century.