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Largest open-pit mine

I've seen and heard various conflicting reports that say that Chuquicamata in Chile or that the Kennecott Copper Mine in Utah are the largest open-put mines in the world. Here in Utah, we say that Kennecott is the largest open-pit mine in the world, but it seems that Chuquicamata also makes this claim. Can anybody confirm one way or the other which is true? bob rulz 10:47, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Nevermind, I've done some additional research and it seems that Kennecott Mine in Utah is indeed the largest open-put mine in the world. bob rulz 10:49, August 7, 2005 (UTC)
Why not share your sources of some additional research with us. Vsmith 17:05, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I will. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] and [6] (in the Did you Know? section) all say that the Bingham Canyon mine (Kennecott Copper Mine) is the largest open-pit mine in the world. Of what I found, only [7], [8], and the numerous Wikipedia mirrors said that the one in Chile was the largest. This thread on the discussion of the largest open-pit mine in the world gives conflicting views. bob rulz 07:21, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
Kennecott Copper Mine is deeper, Chuquicamata enfolds a larger area

Surely largest should be measured as the highest volume extracted as compared to the origional ground surface? Other measurements like deepest and longest should not be counted as largest. Htaccess 05:29, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree. I would have assumed in reading it that 'largest' meant largest surface area. There is some ambiguity in how you define this of course.


Funny, as I got back from a trip to Hibbing, Minnesota where they said the Hull-Rust Mine is the largest open pit in the World Vohod 21:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Yeah, I am from Hibbing and people up there do say that Hull-Rust-Mahoning Mine is the largest open pit mine in the world. After looking around a bit I see some publications say it is the largest open pit "Iron" mine in the world. Who knows for certain. Digdugsmug 01:56, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Size of Australian gold mines

How do pits like Telfer and the Super Pit gold mine in Western Australia compare in size to those listed? Htaccess 05:29, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Super Pit, when completely worked out, will be "3.8 kilometres long, 1.35km wide and go down to a depth of more than 500m" [9]. Does this help? Sliggy 00:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Superpit is a baby compared to the ones in Chile and to Bingham Canyon. However, people are forgetting that a lot of coal mines are worked by strip mining, which would if you ignore the fact they are backfilled, qualify them as the largest in the world. Odds are, it's one in Russia. Rolinator 15:19, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation (merge?)

I put the following disambiguation line at the top of the article:

This is an article about a specific type of surface mining. For a more general treatment, see that article.

However, it seems to me that a better solution might be to just merge the two articles. However, the surface mining article does state that open-pit mining is a kind of surface mining. --Smithfarm 09:48, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Open cast or open cut?

I've never heard of the term 'open cast'. I live in a region which contains a very large number of open cut coal mines, and I have worked in and around mines. I had never heard of open cast until I saw what I thought was a typo in the description of a photo in the Australia article.

Is open cast really a valid term, and if so, what is the etymology of 'cast'? This sounds remarkably as if someone has mis-heard 'open cut' and taken it from there. --Athol Mullen 23:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Opencast is the term used in British English. I believe it means the same thing as 'open cut' or 'open-pit'.62.31.12.18 01:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are right. As a Brit the only term I had heard for this type of mine, before looking up this entry, was 'opencast'. Usually written as one word, I think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.232.250.50 (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Open Pit versus strip mine

The photo of the coal mine in Germany looks to me like a strip mine rather than an open pit mine. Perhaps it should be put instead in the Surface mining article under "area strip mining." Anyone know about this mine?Plazak 23:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The photo of the German definitely looks like a strip mining operation. Definitely not an open pit mine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.215.43.106 (talk) 06:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"These seats are usually on 30000 metre or 60 metre levels" Could it have meant 30 metres instead of 30000? It might be vandalism.

Depth of the Big Hole in Kimberley

It says on the page that the BigHole reached a depth of more than 1,000 meters. Is that correct? As far as I know the actual OPEN MINE at Kimberley reached a depth of less than 300 meters. The parts that did reach deeper were underground mining efforts and not open mining. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.75.103.73 (talk) 09:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Claims about mine sizes

There appears to be lots of claims about the size of mines, largest, second largest etc. Very few of these have any referencing to back up these claims. I would suggest that unless these claims are substantiated the statement is removed for the sake of NPOV. —Preceding Comment added by Nshimbi (talk • contribs) 09:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The list almost warrants a list in itself, List of open-pit mines.--kelapstick (talk) 17:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

open pit

is out —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.155.243.148 (talk) 09:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Publicly-traded mining companies

Hi. Does anyone know what are the top open pit mining companies that are publicly traded in the U.S., Canada or Europe? Preferribly industrial minerals, but I could use ANY open pit mining company, irrespective of the mineral (or metal). The important criteria is that a significant or major part of the company's business be from open pit mining. Any insight would be very helpful.--Mr. DASS (talk) 03:23, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Description error

Sorry I´m not a regular contributor, but I noticed a factual error in the Extraction section.

"Ore which has been processed is known as tailings, and is generally a slurry." is incorrect.

Tailings are the waste material left over as described in the Wikipedia section for tailings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailings

Sorry I don´t have time to edit myself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.222.24.170 (talk) 18:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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