WorldWide Drilling Resource

48 FEBRUARY 2015 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® Mining in the USA Part 27 Compiled by Amy White, Associate Editor WorldWide Drilling Resource ® Utah is a land of extremes. It’s a place where flat, salty desert meets rugged canyons, and mountains soaring above 13,000 feet in the northeast contrast with depths 11,000 feet lower in the south- west. The beginning of commercial min- ing in Utah dates back to the mid-1800s. General Patrick E. Connor and his sol- diers formally organized the first min- ing district, West Mountain (currently Bingham), in 1863. The following year, placer gold was discovered in Bingham Canyon. The placers yielded about $1.5 million in gold, and were the largest and most productive ever discovered in the state. However, by 1900, they were vir- tually depleted. Today, old goldmining districts in Utah are being reexplored, and revived in some cases, with new technology. Recent major gold developments include operations in Bingham, Mercur, Goldstrike, Tintic, and East Tintic mining districts. Utah is also home to the Bingham Canyon Mine which has produced more copper than any mine in history - over 19 million tons. At 2¾ miles across and ¾ of a mile deep, it is the largest man-made excavation on earth and can be seen in space. For over a century, the mine has been a fixture in the Salt Lake Valley. In addition to producing roughly 300,000 tons of copper per year, the Bingham Canyon Mine also produces about 400,000 ounces of gold; 4 million utah Operations at the Bingham Canyon Mine. WWDR photos. ounces of silver; 30 million pounds of molybdenum; and 1 million tons of sulfu- ric acid annually. This is accomplished by a daily sequence of drilling, blasting, loading, hauling, crushing, and convey- ing around the clock. At the U.S. Magnesium electrolytic plant in Tooele County, magnesium is produced from Great Salt Lake brines. The 80,000-acre operation has capacity to produce over 55,000 tons of primary magnesium each year, along with chlo- rine, calcium chloride, iron chlorides, and hydrochloric acid. Utah generally accounts for less than 2% of coal production in the U.S. Even so, coal has provided an honest living for generations of miners in the state. Most of Utah’s active coal mines can be found underground in the cen- tral Uinta Basin. Surface mining also takes place in southern areas. In some form or another, mining has taken place in all of Utah’s 29 counties. From common to precious, the total value of extracted resources exceeds one billion dollars, and continues to grow.