Mission Mine Tour

As part of my Surface Mine Planning class at the UofA, I made a visit to Mission Mine which is just south of Tucson in order to review the operations and processes occurring at the open-pit. It was an eye-opener in terms of the size of the pit - the mine occupies 20,000 acres of land and the pit is 2 miles by 2.5 miles, and nearing 1500ft deep. The mining at Mission was dominantly underground until 2003 however open-pit mining did begin in 1959. The Cu is at great depths which meant it actually took two years of mining before they reached the copper in 1961.

One thing I certainly was intrigued about was the reclamation plans for this site. Current projections show the expected costs of filling the open pit to be near one million dollars per day and is expected to continue for fifty years in twentysix years time, which is when production is expected to cease. However, as this is not economically viable, it will not be filled. Instead the waste rock is used at proving grounds in order to teach workers and test new equipment before they are used on the mine sites. The tailings on the other hand are known for being stable and are planned to serve as an area for solar panels.

This is an example of one of the main reasons I chose to study abroad as today I visited my first mine site. The fieldwork and learning opportunities here are endless with textbook examples just waiting to be visited.