Copper Mining

Copper Mining

Copper mining has become a very important industry in today’s society. It is also one of man’s oldest commercial activities. There are many steps from finding a mine site to producing a product made of copper or a copper alloy. The mining industry has also had many important developments from the time the first mine was formed in Rio Tinto in 3000 B.C.

The earliest copper sources were globules and chunks of native copper found on the Earth’s surface. After we quickly exhausted the limited amount of native copper, we were forced to look underground for more sources. It started out as a simple and tiring process. In early civilizations slaves would break up rock layers to find copper, and other minerals. It would then be removed from tunnels and small pits where it was found by hand. The first significant breakthrough in the mining process came when smelting was discovered.

We have come a long way from those days. Today mining is a very high tech industry containing many expensive steps. The first step is exploration, or finding a good source of copper. This can take any where from 3 to 4 years and cost up to $7,000,000. Next is mine development. This stage also takes 3 to 4 years but costs much more, up to $75,000,000. The third stage is producing the mine. This costs almost $30,000,000 a year, and takes 9 to 21 years before it is completed. The final stage is called final reclamation, lasting around 3 years and costing $27,000,000. These 4 stages apply to both of the 2 most basic forms of copper ores found in nature; sulfide ores and oxide ores. It is a complicated process removing the copper from these two ores since it makes up only 1% of the rock material.

Mining copper sulfide ores requires a grinding process to separate the copper from the rest of the rock. The first step is to blast the mine and then haul the material to a copper ore mill.