On Saturday Capstone Copper’s Pinto Valley Mine gave the public a chance to celebrate the mine’s 50th anniversary and visit the world of open-pit copper mining. To mark the milestone – Pinto Valley Mine was first commissioned in 1974 – Capstone welcomed visitors to a Community Open Day event on the lawn at Bullion Plaza. And there were plenty of visitors.

Guided bus tours of the Pinto Valley Mine, off Highway 60 west of Miami, were a highlight of the day. Tour participants got to see some of the gigantic vehicles parked near the Pinto Valley entrance and pose for pictures with the huge tires as a backdrop, then proceeded to the mine’s overlook for a panoramic view and a bird’s-eye look at the haul trucks working far below.

On the Bullion Plaza lawn, visitors had a chance to stop and talk with staff from various departments of the Pinto Valley Mine including production, mine operations and technical services, and health, safety and environment.

“We wanted to provide the opportunity for the community to come out and see exactly what Capstone Copper does for the community, as well as give some insight as to the amount of copper we’ve produced over the years,” said Chance Fuller, manager of Assets and Engineering. Fuller added that Pinto Valley produces, on average, 100 million to 120 million pounds of copper annually.

Fuller and co-worker Amanda Campbell manned a table celebrating the mine’s 50th anniversary; the spread included historic photos and documents, and copper artifacts. There was also a decibel meter that Fuller said was probably used in the 1980s or 1990s to protect workers’ hearing. “They’d actually go around with a microphone on this and measure the decibels in the area to ensure it wasn’t a hazardous environment,” said Fuller. Over its 50 years of operation, Pinto Valley Mine has been owned by Copper Cities, Magma Copper, BHP, and Capstone Mining/Capstone Copper.

The day also included speakers, other mining-related organizations, food trucks, and STEM activities – like digging for minerals at Pinto Valley’s Mine Operations and Technical Services station.

“Technical Services starts with geology,” said Chief Geologist James Adu. “What geologists mainly do is guide the operations: If we say the ore is here, they don’t go mine somewhere else. We also communicate if there are any changes in the characteristics of the ore and do infill drilling to increase our confidence in the deposit.

“A lot of things go on here,” Adu said of Mine Operations. This includes Mine Planning, Fleet Management and Geotech, the last of which monitors open pit walls to ensure they are safe from collapse.

Adu said there are three categories of planning: short-range (daily and weekly), mid-term (months to a year) and long-term. “Mine Operations relies mostly on the weekly plans and then the daily. Every day they are asking us, ‘Where do you want us to mine?’ We communicate exactly where they are supposed to mine in order for us to have the right ore.”