Talk:Kennecott Copper Mine

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Regarding the suggestion to merge this article with the Bingham Canyon article, the Kennecott Copper Mine is a definitely a distinct entity from Bingham Canyon. It should certainly be maintained as a separate article so that people looking for information on the mine don't have to know to go to the Bingham Canyon page to find it.

The problem is is that both of them are articles on the mine. Bingham Canyon needs to be rewritten to talk about the canyon, not the mine, as this would be the proper article for the mine to be at. bob rulz 19:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One in and the Same

Although Bingham canyon is separate and distict from the actual mine, there shouldn't be a separate article. Almost all of Bingham Canyon has been enveloped by the mine, and the rest is filled with waste rock in the form of a dump. Bingham Canyon, in reality, doesn't exist separately from the mine. The articles should be combined.

The article Kennecott Copper Mine repeats info present at Bingham Canyon and I would support a merger of those articles (into "Bingham Canyon" since that is the more recognized name). However the article Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation contains significant different information and seems more reasonable to maintain separately. The two articles (Bingham/Kennecott Mine and the one on the Corporation) should probably be interlinked a bit more (or at least more prominently). Geologyguy 15:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Adding my own $0.02 to this debate, I don't think they should be merged together, as they really are two very different and distinct concepts and ideas. Bingham Canyon, Utah was actually a city that no longer currently exists, but had a very distinctive culturual and ethic history and flavor. An article about Bingham Canyon really needs to emphasis this town and the original canyon that existed before the mining took place there. Bingham Canyon was noted especially as having the longest Main Street of any town in Utah because there were no cross streets due to the fact it was built in such a narrow canyon. Yet it was the residence of over 15,000 people.

That the physical space that was once this town is now hundreds of feet above the copper mine may be true, but story of Bingham Canyon is something that needs to be told as a seperate Wikipedia entry.

As for the content of the current Bingham Canyon article, yeah, I support merging that content into this article and doing a serious rewrite of the Bingham Canyon article to emphasis more the history and city that once was there. --Robert Horning 21:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe that we should merge them (when I created this article I didn't even think to look at Bingham Canyon), but that we should merge them into Kennecott. Kennecott is the more popular usage. Everybody here calls it the Kennecott mine, and while people will still know what you're talking about when you say the Bingham Canyon mine, most everybody I know says the Kennecott mine first and foremost. bob rulz 07:30, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I was trying to make a distinction between the (currently nonexistant) geographical feature called Bingham Canyon and the city that was built in it, and the mine. Sure, the history of the two is intertwined, but there is also some independence between the two as well. That the mine completely consumed the canyon is certainly something of note that is worthy of mention. --Robert Horning 17:21, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but if we made an article on the former city, it would go at Bingham Canyon, Utah, and not at Bingham Canyon as the current article is at (which isn't about the city at all, it seems). I agree that more mention should be given to the canyon that was completely consumed and to the major mining city that use to exist here. bob rulz 17:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem is, nobody in the mining business calls the mine the "Kennecott Copper Mine" -- almost everone uses the Bingham Canyon mine, occasionally Utah Copper. The "Kennicott Copper Mine" (company name is a Typo) is in Alaska! Pete Tillman 21:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Largest in the world

It seems that at least one other mine (Chuquicamata) makes the same claim to being the largest open cast mine in the world. While its entirely possible that Kennecott is the largest (by one measure or another) , this claim should be qualified with how the measure is defined (volume, surface area, depth etc..) . See Talk:Chuquicamata. Zootalures 23:48, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keep Kennecott separate

Arguments to merge the mining operation and the geographic location ignore the fact that the mining has economic, sociological, and political significance distinct from the geographic. Those parts of the canyon that relate to the mine alone ought to be moved here, rather than the other way around, with a short explaantory reference to Kennecott at that place.

Keeping the mine's significance and the geographical feature's significance separate aids in avoiding distraction from each item's unique signficance and would result in a cleaner, clearer, better focused discussion in both places.