Category: Mines Gone Wild
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Bingham Canyon Mine Landslide
At 9:30 pm on April 10, 2013, the largest non-volcanic landslide in the history of North America occurred at Bingham Canyon Mine near Salt Lake City, Utah USA. Around 65–70 million cubic meters (2.3×109–2.5×109 cu ft) of dirt and rock thundered down the side of the pit – enough to cover New York City”s Central…
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Landslide at Malaysian Tin Mine
A huge landslide occurred in an abandoned seaside open cast tin mine near Pantai Remis, Malaysia on 21 October 1993. The rapid collapse of the wall separating the excavation from the sea resulted in a massive flood and a new cove. Some considered the video (shown below) of the event the greatest footage of a…
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Berkeley Pit (Butte, Montana USA))
The Berkeley Pit is a former open pit copper mine located in Butte, Montana USA. The pit began to fill with water after the mine was closed in 1982 and is currently about 900 feet deep. The water is very acidic (pH of around 2.5) due to dissolved sulfur compounds from the surrounding rock. The…
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Lake Peigneur Disaster (Iberia Parish, Louisiana USA)
The Lake Peigneur disaster is the story of what can happen when two types of mineral extraction collide. On November 20, 1980, a Texaco crew started drilling in the lake, unaware due to a miscalculation that they were directly above a shaft of an operating salt mine with workers present. Penetration of the shaft resulted in…