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Massive Landslide In Kennecott Copper Bingham Canyon Mine, Oquirrh Mountains, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
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Geology
The Bingham Canyon orebody is a porphyry copper deposit, formed by a quartz monzonite porphyry intruded into sedimentary rocks. It has the concentric alteration pattern and mineralogic zonation typical of porphyry copper deposits.
The oldest rocks at Bingham Canyon--sandstones, quartzites and limestones—were originally deposited as sediment by the shallow seas that covered the region 300 million years ago (in the late Paleozoic Era). Much later, between 60 and 135 million years ago, extensive folding and faulting of the sediments created the Oquirrh Mountains.
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