Press Release from Rio Tinto, operator of this huge open pit:

11 April 2013

Kennecott Utah Copper’s Bingham Canyon Mine pit wall slide

At 9.30 pm local time on 10 April 2013, Kennecott Utah Copper’s Bingham Canyon Mine experienced a slide along a geotechnical fault line of its north eastern wall. Movement on the north eastern wall had accelerated in recent weeks and pre-emptive measures were taken to relocate facilities and roads prior to the slide. All employees are safe and accounted for.

Mine operations are currently suspended while experts assess the extent of the slide and impact on operations.

The mine posted pictures on their flickr page, including this beautiful shot:

Yikes! That is astonishing. It’s hard to appreciate the scale of this picture. I’ve never been in this open pit mine, but I’ve been in others almost as big, and the size of the pit will make your head spin. If you look carefully, you’ll be able to pick out various pieces of mining equipment along the roads, especially down at the bottom of the slide. If you look at the large version of this photo, you can see that there are 6 dump trucks parked there. But these are not ordinary dump trucks. They are the big ones, with ten foot tires and beds you could put a house in.

The geometry of the the landslide is almost fluid like, or molten wax. I’d have to do some research, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen similar looking features in craters on mars.

This mine is closed now, and probably for some time. From what I can tell, all the haulage ramps were taken out by the slide. And I’ll bet the slide is still moving.