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| Remembering Bethlehem Mines posted If you have never experienced a surface mine first hand it tends to overwhelm you. My first visit took place in 1965 when my high school class visited the open pit iron mine in Marmora, Ontario, about two hours northeast of Toronto. The mining company, Bethlehem Steel, had discovered a deposit of magnetite iron ore that was 33 meters (+100 feet) under the land surface, and therefore accessible by using open pit technology. To access the ore the company removed 73 million tons of limestone. The pit pictured was a spectacular engineering feat. Its terraced sides served as a roadway upon which some of the biggest trucks I had ever seen crawled hauling raw ore excavated from the pit. I remember taking some sample magnetite home with me containing beautifully formed garnet crystals. The open pit at Marmora was developed in 1952 and mined out by 1978. The ore body at Marmora was not large, spanning 850 by 220 meters (approximately 2,800 by 720 feet) and at its deepest reached 460 meters (1,500 feet) below the surface. It wasn’t highly concentrated iron either and therefore was crushed and pelletized as concentrate on site. You can see in the picture some of the processing buildings next to the open pit. At the time I first visited Marmora huge power shovels and bulldozers could be seen on the pit floor digging up raw ore. After 26 years the mine was no longer of any economic value and mining operations ceased. Today the abandoned mine sits like an open wound on the landscape slowly filling with water. Next to the pit lie mountains of waste material. One can find lots of Marmoras around the planet, abandoned pits accompanied by slag heaps, with little effort by the companies that did the mining and by the governments that granted mining licenses to do any environmental rehabilitation. James Torgeson shared The open pit iron ore mine at Marmora, Ontario that was once operated by Bethlehem Steel's Marmoraton Mining Company. Much of the mine's pellet production (1955-1978) was shipped to the Lackawanna Plant from the ore dock at Picton on Lake Ontario. |
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| Comments on James' share |
The pit is now full of water, but the debris piles still exist. I wonder if they could make it into a dirt-bike and four-wheel drive park and attract some tourists. Is their a dirt bike racing circuit?
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| Remembering Bethlehem Mines posted James Torgeson shared Marmoraton Mine Pit Lake The pit lake at the Bethlehem Steel Marmoraton Mine in Marmora, Ontario. It operated from 1955-1978, shipping pellets via Picton on Lake Ontario. |
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