Corta Atalaya is the largest

open-pit mine Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a Borrow pit, b ...

in EuropeEmed Mining gestiona reapertura al turismo de Corta Atalaya en mina Riotinto
eleconomista.es, 2007-12-09. Retrieved 2010-01-06. and was at one time the largest in the world. It is located within the city limits of Minas de Riotinto in the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Huelva Huelva (, ) is a city in southwestern Spain, the capital of the province of Huelva in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is between two short rias though has an outlying spur including nature reserve on the Gulf of Cádiz coast. The ria ...

autonomous community eu, autonomia erkidegoa ca, comunitat autònoma gl, comunidade autónoma oc, comunautat autonòma an, comunidat autonoma ast, comunidá autónoma , alt_name = , map = , category = Autonomous administra ...

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The t ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

.Minas de Riotinto - Huelva
part o
Guía de la Faja Pirítica Ibérica: Historia y Naturaleza
(2006) on the official site of the Autonomous Andalusian Government. Retrieved 2010-01-06. It is roughly elliptical in shape, long, wide, and deep. "Minas de Rio Tinto. 5.000 Años de Minería

Retrieved 2010-01-06. It was one of the most ambitious projects of the Rio Tinto Group. At its peak it employed 2,000 workers mining

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

; it was actively mined until 1992.Beatriz Santacruz
La evolución de las minas de Riotinto
''El Mundo Magazine'', Issue 101, 2001-09-02. Retrieved 2010-01-06. Since at least 1994 it has been flooded up to the 16th ring. Corta Atalaya1

This open-pit mine in the western part of the Masa San Dionisio was begun in 1907 after major subsidence in some of the higher-altitude parts of the area two years earlier, caused by the combustion of

pyrites The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue ...

in the earlier subterranean mines. The mines were nationalized in 1954 but later sold back to a private company. As of October 2009, the current owner, EMED Tartessus, says they will have the mine operating again before the end of 2013.EMED Mining Quarterly Report
2009-10-26. Retrieved 2010-01-07.

Geology

Corta Atalaya is a mine in western part of the

Iberian Pyrite Belt The Iberian Pyrite Belt is a vast geographical area with particular geological features that stretches along much of the south of the Iberian Peninsula, from Portugal to Spain. It is about 250 km long and 30–50 km wide, running northwe ...

. It is part of a zone of

volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposit Volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits, also known as VMS ore deposits, are a type of metal sulfide ore deposit, mainly copper-zinc which are associated with and created by volcanic-associated hydrothermal events in submarine environments. ...

s of Silurian to Carboniferous age which has produced significant copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver.Guilbert, John and Charles F. Park, Jr., ''The Geology of Ore Deposits,'' Freeman, 1986, p. 575

La Atalaya

The village of La Atalaya was constructed for the subterranean mining of the San Dionisio seam, which in 1907 became the Corta Atalaya open-pit mine. In 1873, Rio Tinto Company, later Rio Tinto Group, acquired the mines of Riotinto. Encountering the problem of transporting miners from their homes to their workplaces, and taking only economic concerns into consideration, they planned construction of houses where the miners had already built huts to stay overnight near the mines. Thus, the village of La Atalaya was founded in 1883. The company simply substituted more durable buildings for the huts, constructing neighborhoods in the locations the miners had already chosen. Construction began on 100 houses, each of , providing only the most minimal necessities of lodging. The company then went on to build a public plaza, chapel, grocery store, casino, school, and a

Guardia Civil The Civil Guard ( es, Guardia Civil, link=no; ) is the oldest law enforcement agency in Spain and is one of two national police forces. As a national gendarmerie force, it is military in nature and is responsible for civil policing under the au ...

barracks. For almost a century, this was home to many of the miners, first those working in the subterranean mine and then in the Corta Atalaya open pit. The population peaked around 1910: In 1970, La Atalaya had 257 buildings and a population of 823. That year, approval was received to enlarge the pit; in 1971, La Atalaya was destroyed because it was in the path of the mining. La Atalaya was not the only townsite sacrificed to the mine. Earlier, the original location of Minas de Riotinto lay in the path of the mine; the town was moved to its present site.

After closure

As of 2008, EMED Mining owns 100% of the mine, through its 100%-owned subsidiary, EMED Tartessus SL. EMED Tartessus is currently tasked with cleaning and restarting the mine, and Proyecto de Rio Tinto to operate it for the long term.EMED Tartessus - Proyecto de Rio Tinto
, www.emed-mining.com. Retrieved 2010-01-07. For some time after the mine closed in 1992, it was possible to visit the mine. EMED Tartessus did not allow the public to visit as of 2007, but was discussing the possibility of changing that. EMED projects that eventually the mine will again employ 450 people, and that they will be spending over €130 million per year in Spain. As of September 2007, they had spent €3.5 million and budgeted another €15 million toward cleanup and resumption of operations. As of 26 October 2009, they projected that production would resume by the end of 2010. Two films have used the former mine as a locale: '' El corazón de la tierra'', directed by

Antonio Cuadri Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan language, Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 40 ...

and based on the novel of the same name by

Juan Cobos Wilkins ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, t ...

, a political-historical film about the Rio Tinto mines; and the science fiction film '' Proxima'', written and directed by

Carlos Atanes Carlos Atanes (born November 8, 1971) is a Spanish film director, writer and playwright. He was born in Barcelona, and is a member of The Film-Makers' Cooperative, founded by Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, Ken Jacobs, Andy Warhol, Jack Smith an ...

, which used the mine as an otherworldly landscape. The nearby

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

course Club de Golf Atalaya has grass only on its

putting green A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". Th ...

s. Originally the North Lode Golf Club, founded in 1890, it was Spain's oldest, but was abandoned to the growth of the Corta Atalaya pit. It reopened in 1992 under its current name and configuration.Club de Golf Atalaya
, official site. Retrieved 2010-01-06.

Gallery

The following images help to give a sense of the scale of the mine. File:Atalaya 1.JPG, Near the right of this image, in the fourth ring from the bottom, you can see an object. File:Locomotora1.JPG, Here, we zoom in, so the object can be made out a bit more easily. File:Locomotora2.JPG, Zooming in further, one can see that the object is an abandoned steam locomotive. (Click through for a larger image.)

Notes

External links

* Clive Boulter (University of Southampton)
CORTA ATALAYA - the westernmost mine in the Rio Tinto camp
part o

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