Showing posts with label mine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mine. Show all posts

Bingham Canyon Mine Landslide

On April 10, 2013, a gigantic chunk of earth and rocks gave away and crashed into the humongous pit created by copper mining at the Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, the United States. Approximately 65 to 70 million cubic meters of debris thundered down the walls of the mine reaching speeds up to 100 miles per hour. The event was so large that it shook the earth and the tremors were picked up by seismic sensors designed to record earthquakes. The intensity recorded by the instruments measured 2.5 in Richter Scale. In other words, the landslide felt like a 2.5 quake.

The incident was the largest non-volcanic landslide in the modern history of North America, and it occurred in the largest man-made excavation in the world.

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Photo credit: unknown