Pima Mine Tour near Sahuarita AZ right near the Desert Diamond Casino . What an amazing place! It mines copper. The metal, hidden within the rock and dirt is extricated by blasting, shoveling, and hauling in huge trucks with this size tire! The huge rocks start out several feet in size and after the milling process the result is literally a powder form of copper and rock dust. The final step of this powder is to be sent all over the country and world for the final step to get the final product of copper. Mexico owns this mine, unreal!
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| An open mine is a stair step looking hole. The roads are barely wide enough for two lanes to hold the huge equipment. The water trucks work 24/7 to keep the dust down and the mill is also 24/7. |
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| This cable is actually 6 inches across and the 3 large copper centers are over 1 inch across. |
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| Mary Marcus and I. Can you believe the size of this truck? It holds 75 tons which only takes 5 shovel fulls to fill. |
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| Guess who? Mary, Dan and me. This is a cut away section of a rolling drum that holds 5 inch steel balls that roll around with the rock product to beat it down to smaller size. the balls last in size only about 2 weeks. |
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| This is definitely a cactus annomilly at the entrance of the mine tour. |
