It was great catching up as we enjoyed warm scones and
tea. We traded travel stories,
reminisced about old times, and got new ideas of places to see. Since we had a chunk of time between morning
tea and the dinner Sharon offered to prepare for us, we thought we’d visit
the Asarco Mineral Discovery Center, just north of Green Valley, and
tour its open pit copper mine.
The Discovery Center is beautifully landscaped with all
sorts of desert plants and cacti along the path leading to the visitor
center. Inside is a museum area, as well
as a gift shop, so we did some browsing before our tour started.
I learned quite a bit about mining and using copper from the
display. It takes a huge amount of digging and processing to get to the metal
itself, and it plays an important part in everything we do. We rely on electricity that’s brought to us
through copper wiring. Our refrigerators
require a lot of copper. It’s in
doorknobs and bedsteads, vitamin pills and fertilizers. Airplanes contain lots
of it and so do buses. Not in Canada any more, but in the US, pennies are
coated with copper (inside, they’re made of zinc).
Our tour guide, Doug, came around to collect us for the
guided portion of the visit, and explained a bit about the mine we were about
to see. Measuring two miles wide and two
and a half miles long, the mine pit looks like an enormous crater with terraced
walls. The trucks that are used to
transport the overburden and ore are so big, drivers have to climb two storeys’
worth of stairs to reach the steering wheel.
The bucket of the truck could hold several buses, and the tires are
twice as high as a tall man.
Huge quantities of overburden have to be collected,
transported and then broken down to get at the copper. First it’s done by physical crushing from
huge rocks to small rocks to pebble-sized stones to pea-sized bits and finally
to powder. Then chemicals are used to
separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.
Even then, the resulting black sludge has to be shipped to Amarillo,
Texas, before it finally becomes the orangey metal we all recognize. By-products
include silver and gold, and the company ensures that the land is returned to a
natural state when its gifts have been extracted.
We saw every part of the process, from watching the massive
trucks at work to seeing cauldrons the size of dozens of swimming pools
bubbling like black soup. Doug gave an
excellent description of each step. It was
a fascinating visit, all told!
Then it was time to return to Sharon and Darrell’s place for
a tasty dinner and more conversation. After dinner, their Canadian neighbours
Vern and Angela joined us as well. We could have talked all night and not run
out of things to say! We now have lots
of new suggestions of things to see in the coming days, and more good memories to
light our way.
1 comment:
Just goes to show that people are always the best part of the trip. I'm sitting here waiting to fire up the snow blower but have to wait until the snow stops. It started at midnight last night.. it's 1:10 pm. now!!!
Great to hear about your adventures. Stay safe.
Scott
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