The April 10, 2013, landslide at Rio Tinto-Kennecott Utah Copper’s Bingham Canyon mine contains enough debris to bury New York City’s Central Park 66 feet deep, according to a new University of Utah study. The slide happened in the form of two rock avalanches 95 minutes apart. The first rock avalanche included grayer bedrock material seen around the margins of the lower half of the slide. The second rock avalanche is orange in color, both from bedrock and from waste rock from mining. The new study found the landslide triggered 16 small quakes. Such triggering has not been noted previously. The slide likely was the largest nonvolcanic landslide in North America’s modern history. Photo Credit: Kennecott Utah Copper (Click image to enlarge)
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