Self-Guided Field Trip Investigation

Kennecott Copper Mine

Bingham Utah
By Hazel Blackhair

Geology 1010 Salt Lake Community College November 7, 2018

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This location is a very interesting site because you can see it from space and its manmade. I have
lived in the Salt Lake City for 7 yrs and haven’t been to the site for over 40yrs when my father
worked for the roads department for the Bureau of Indian affairs and they would go and get some
on the used tires from the big trucks and use them on their road making trucks.

Human History:

Bingham Canyon Mine or Kennecott Copper Mine is in the south east part of the Salt Lake
Valley and this is located on the Oquirrh Mountains and it was named for the two brothers
Sanford and Thomas Bingham who were latter-day saints pioneers, in September of 1847 they
lived near by and they grazed their cattle there. They reported the Copper Ore to Brigham Young
their Pastor, who told them to leave the copper ore and not bother with it so they did not stake a
claim to the place but it still carries their name.

In 1903 the Utah Copper was incorporated on June 4th, 1903. The mine was created to process
low-grade copper ore found in the Canyon dig onto a mine, The canyon sits on the Oquirrh
Mountains The name Oquirrh was taken from the Goshute word meaning "Wood sitting."
The Oquirrh Mountains have been mined for gold, silver, lead, and copper, as home of the
porphyry copper deposit.

Geologic setting:

The mine orebody is about 30 to 40 million years old, about that time magma was injected into a
sequence of predominantly quartzite and limestone beds, which is part of a roughly 300- to 350-
million-year-old Oquirrh Group. The magma cooled to form a body of igneous rock (monzonite
porphyry) known as the Bingham stock. The hot liquid from this magma deposited in various
copper-sulfide (mainly chalcopyrite) and other metallic minerals, that formed a low-grade
orebody. That makes up most of the mountain range. But there is Latitic volcanic rocks
everywhere, along the eastern flank of the Oquirrh Mountains all around Bingham Canyon

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porphyry Cu-Au-Mo deposit (genetically and spatially related to Eocene plagioclase hornblende)
estimation of the basal contact of volcanic rocks shows that they likely covered parts of the
Bingham intrusions less than 500 m above the pre-mining surface. Some Bingham intrusions
may have vented to the surface to help form the volcanic sequence which explains the unusual
large volcanic rock we came across in the field of grass with no explanation of where it came
from.

The range of the Oquirrh mounitan is 30 miles long heading south along the east of the Salt
Lake Valley with a north-trending fault along the western base of the Mountains. The
Mountains are the highest of three distinctive north-south mountain ranges in the Valley. And its
west of the high central part of the Wasatch Range. Several buried faults that do not cut surface
deposits are here in the Oquirrh fault zone. One fault zone is the Occidental fault, that runs along
the mountain. the mountain appears to be sharp pointy tops pushed up from the crushing of the
tetonic plates. The folding with the left-lateral, northeast tear faults, accompanied with the
thrusting and pushing of the rocks upward causing the hornblende look of the mountain range.
The rocks mostly all have the same mineral grains and about the same size is the Equigranular
quartz and are poorly compared to the later porphyry phases (ingenious rocks of large grained
crystals) but both are intermediate in composition. with steep ridges on all sides of the mountain
range. No large trees or large shrubs grown on the top range. There was six major igneous phases
of the Bingham stock, folding sedimentary rocks of the Butterfield Peaks and Bingham Mine
formations. The mountain ranges host three major mining districts, including the Bingham
mining district, the Oquirrh mountain has had a long and complex structural history that has
direct bearing on the distribution of plutonic rocks and the metallogenic evolution of the two
mountain ranges. Hydrothermal alteration and mineralization is genetically related to the quartz
monzonite porphyry, mostly related to the Oquirrh Mountain and the major porphyry phase.
Mainly based on zone patterns around the top of the intrusion. The northwest faulting cut the
intrusions and is related to Basin and Range tectonics.

Environmental Outlook and Land Reclamation

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Land reclamation means returning land that has been disturbed by mining activities to a
meaningful, post-mining land use, such as wildlife habitat, residential use or agricultural use.

The Rio Tinto company continues to implement many land management activities that include
land reclamation, animal refuge. deer and elk management, grazing practices and vegetation
control. To protect the environment. They have Implementing a noxious weed management
program in coordination with Salt Lake County and the Bonneville Cooperative Weed
Management areas. Also have Implementing a wildland fire prevention program. And are
continually working with the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) local
universities, non-governmental organizations and others to better understand the local wildlife
and their habitat, and to identify potential impacts from their presence on the Oquirrh Mountain.

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I’m

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Figure 1.

Looking west to the copper mine at the road and the mountain of moved rocks

Figure 2. looking South east over the Oquirrh Mountain range to Provo valley

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Figure 3. North east in to the Bingham Copper Mine

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Figure 4. looking to the North and slightly east in to the hole of the Bingham Mine. Looking over
the Oquirrh mountain range no large trees are much shrub growth.

figure 5. bolder looking rock sitting in the field looks like a chunk of iron burned from hot lava

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Figure 6. Weathering on/in the rocks plant growth

Works Cited

Charles Hawley (sept, 15, 2014) a Kennecott story, Three mines, four men and one hundred
years 1887-1997.. University of Utah press.

Geoffrey H. Ballantyne, David h John. (January, 1998). SOCIETY OF ECONOMIC

GEOLOGISTS GUIDEBOOK, Geology and Ore Deposits of the Oquirrh and Wasatch
Mountains, Utah, Publication 1998, Society of Economic Geologists. Utah.

Alan Deino, Jeffrey D. Keith, (January, 1998). "Ages of Volcanic and Intrusive Rocks in the
Bingham Mining District, Utah", Geology and Ore Deposits of the Oquirrh and Wasatch
Mountains, Utah, David A. John, Geoffrey H. Ballantyne

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E.W Tooker, and Ralph J Roberts,. (1970 p. A1-A25). Biostigraphy and Correlation, Geological
studies of the Bingham Minning district Utah, US Government Printing offive Wasington DC
1970 Library of Congress catalog- card No 73-607760

Utah: A Geologic History, Utah Geological Survey https://geology.utah.gov/popular/general-

geology/geologic.utah-a-geologic-history

Barry Solomon, (1996). Surficial geology of the oquirrh fault zone, tooele county Utah: Sruficial
geology and Paleoseismology. Google.books

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