An ore is a natural occurrence of rock or sediment that contains sufficient minerals with economically important elements, typically metals, that can be economically extracted from the deposit. The ores are extracted at a profit from the earth through mining; they are then refined to extract the valuable element, or elements.
Chuquicamata, or "Chuqui" as it is more familiarly known, is by excavated volume the largest open pit copper mine in the world, located in the north of Chile, just outside Calama at 2,850 m (9,350 ft) above sea level, 215 km (134 mi) northeast of Antofagasta and 1,240 km (770 mi) north of the capital, Santiago. Flotation and smelting facilities were installed in 1952, and expansion of the refining facilities in 1968 made 500,000 ton annual copper production possible in the late 1970s. Previously part of Anaconda Copper, the mine is now owned and operated by Codelco, a Chilean state enterprise, since the Chilean nationalization of copper in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its depth of 850 metres (2,790 ft) makes it the second deepest open-pit mine in the world.
Kidd Mine is an underground base metal mine in the city of Timmins, Ontario, Canada. It is owned by Glencore Inc., and operated by Kidd Operations, a Glencore subsidiary. The mine was formerly owned by Xstrata Copper, Falconbridge Ltd., and Texas Gulf Sulphur. Ore from the Kidd Mine is processed into concentrate at the Kidd Metallurgical Site, located 27 km (17 mi) southeast of the mine, which until 2010 also smelted the ore and refined the metal produced. Following the closure of the majority of the Met Site, concentrate is now shipped to Quebec for processing. Kidd Mine is the world's deepest copper/zinc mine.
Neil Campbell FRSC was a famous Canadian geologist, and is a notable within the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame.
Heath Steele Mines, situated 60 km northwest of Newcastle, New Brunswick, Canada, at the headwaters of the Tomogonops and Little Rivers, was a large and productive copper, lead and zinc mine which operated from 1956 to 1999. The mine was an economic cornerstone of Miramichi communities throughout this period.
Copper mining in the United States has been a major industry since the rise of the northern Michigan copper district in the 1840s. In 2017 the United States produced 1.27 million metric tonnes of copper, worth $8 billion, making it the world's fourth largest copper producer, after Chile, China, and Peru. Copper was produced from 23 mines in the US. Top copper producing states in 2014 were Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Montana. Minor production also came from Idaho, and Missouri. As of 2014, the US had 45 million tonnes of known remaining reserves of copper, the fifth largest known copper reserves in the world, after Chile, Australia, Peru, and Mexico.
Silver mining in the United States began on a major scale with the discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1858. The industry suffered greatly from the demonetization of silver in 1873 by the Coinage Act of 1873, known pejoratively as the "Crime of 73", but silver mining continues today.
Uranium mining in Colorado, United States, goes back to 1872, when pitchblende ore was taken from gold mines near Central City, Colorado. The Colorado uranium industry has seen booms and busts, but continues to this day. Not counting byproduct uranium from phosphate, Colorado is considered to have the third largest uranium reserves of any US state, behind Wyoming and New Mexico.
Silver mining in Colorado has taken place since the 1860s. In the past, Colorado called itself the Silver state.
The Broken Hill Ore Deposit is located underneath Broken Hill in western New South Wales, Australia, and is the namesake for the town. It is arguably the world's richest and largest zinc-lead ore deposit.
Pyhäsalmi Mine, the deepest base metal mine in Europe is located at the Pyhäjärvi municipality in the south of Northern Ostrobothnia province, Finland. The zinc and copper mine is owned by First Quantum Minerals, a Canadian mining corporation.
The Red Dog mine is a zinc and lead mine located in a remote region of the Arctic, within the boundaries of the Red Dog Mine census-designated place in the Northwest Arctic Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska.
The Admiralty mining district is a mining area in the U.S. state of Alaska which consists of Admiralty Island. Most of the gold recovered from the Admiralty district is a by-product of silver and base metal mining.
The Elizabeth Mine was a copper mine located on the town line between the Town of Strafford and the Town of Thetford, in Orange County, Vermont.
Donner Metals Ltd. is a Canadian producing mining company, listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. Its headquarters are in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Donner's principal project is a 35-65 joint venture with Glencore Xstrata in Matagami, Quebec.
The Brunswick #12 mine is an underground lead-zinc-copper mine in the Bathurst Mining Camp of northern New Brunswick, Canada. It was discovered in January, 1953 and entered production in April, 1964. The Brunswick #12 orebody is the largest deposit in the Bathurst area and was one of the largest underground zinc mines in the world well into the late 1990s. The mine was officially closed at the end of April, 2013.
The Bathurst Mining Camp is a mining district in northeast New Brunswick, Canada, centred in the Nepisiguit River valley, and near to Bathurst. The camp hosts 45 known volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits typical of the Appalachian Mountains. Some of the ore is smelted at the Belledune facility of Xstrata. Although the primary commodity is zinc, the massive-sulphide ore body produces lead, zinc, copper, silver, gold, bismuth, antimony and cadmium.
The Wedge Mine was a copper mine in the Bathurst Mining Camp of Northeast New Brunswick. It was owned and operated by Cominco on the north bank of the Nepisiguit River. The mine was discovered in 1956 and in operation from 1962 to 1968 producing 1.5 million tonnes of ore. The ore was trucked to, and milled at the Heath Steele Mine. Only the copper rich part of the deposit was mined.
The Caribou Mine is a copper-lead-zinc mine in the Bathurst Mining Camp of northern New Brunswick, Canada. It was discovered in 1955 and has seen several stages of development and production. The mine has changed ownership four times in the past 20 years.
The Murray Brook Mine is a VMS deposit in the Bathurst Mining Camp (BMC) of northern New Brunswick, Canada owned by NovaGold Resources. The deposit was discovered in 1955 and contains the largest gossan zone in the BMC. From 1989 to 1992 the gossan zone was processed for gold and silver. In 1992 copper rich ore was crushed and tested for heap leaching.
