Mollie Mines

My freshman year of college I took an introduction to agriculture class and the professor told us that the average American is three generations removed from agriculutre and farming. In my experience in mining and conversing with people outside the industry I've thought about this statistic a lot and have the belief that the average American is at least five generations removed from mining. A lot of people, especially my family, don't understand why I would ever want to work in the mining industry. For me, it's simple. I absolutely love mining. I love getting to see things everyday that most people never get to see in their lifetime. To me the milling and metallurgical processes are like magic for adults. Mining is like my own grown up version of Fraggle Rock. I get to work with equipment that's bigger than the house I grew up in and it's still completely acceptable to collect pretty rocks I find no matter how old I get. As if all that wasn't good enough, I get ...

While I was in Elko, NV for the summer I made many trips to Utah. It is one of the few states that my family never vactioned to as a child. While it may not be a place that immediately comes to mind when you think vacation it is definitely worth a visit. There are so many neat little towns and gorgeous mountain scenery everywhere you look. The must see tourist attraction on my list was of course Kennecott Utah Copper's Bingham Canyon Mine. It is the king of open pit mines and is the largest man made excavation in the world. There are two distinct man made features astronauts can see from outerspace and they are The Great Wall of China and the Bingham Canyon copper mine. The mine is about a 30 minute drive from Salt Lake City which is full of great views the whole way. The mine visitors center boasts a very nice museum of Kennecott mining history and lots of models of mining equipment as well as videos explaining the mining process. They did a great job of creating exhibits that any...