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Mines/United States

Berkeley Pit

Berkeley Pit, United States. Closed, open pit, mining copper.

Why Berkeley Pit is famous

MBMG says the pit mined copper in the upper and central part of the Butte ore body between 1955 and 1982. Dewatering pumps were switched off on 22 April 1982, the pit lake formed in November 1983 when the Kelley mine water reached the pit bottom elevation, and more than 3,000 snow geese died on it in November 2016. Water is now treated under US EPA-led clean-up work.1,2

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 1917Granite Mountain shaft fire at Butte4
  2. 25 March 2002Berkeley Pit cleanup settlement3

Berkeley Pit today

Where copper is mined todayMining in United States

Where next

Mines

Located inButte copper districtThe pit mined the upper and central Butte ore body between 1955 and 1982.1

Events

Led toBerkeley Pit cleanup settlementRead what happened near Berkeley Pit: Berkeley Pit cleanup settlement.1Led toGranite Mountain shaft fire at ButteRead what happened near Berkeley Pit: Granite Mountain shaft fire at Butte.1

Places

Located inButteBerkeley Pit sits at Butte.1

Sources

  1. The Berkeley Pit and surrounding mine waters of Butte (Gammons and Duaime, 2020), MBMG Special Publication 122 Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology
  2. Wikidata item Q820869 (Berkeley Pit) Wikidata (CC0)
  3. US and Montana reach agreement with mining companies to clean up Berkeley Pit (25 Mar 2002) US Environmental Protection Agency
  4. Fact Sheet 95-8: Historical Data on Mine Disasters in the United States US Mine Safety and Health Administration

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0.