Infrasound Observations of the Massive Landslide at Bingham Canyon Copper Mine

On 10 April 2013 approximately 55 million m³ of rock collapsed from the northeastern wall of the approximately one-kilometer deep open-pit Bingham Canyon copper mine near Salt Lake City, Utah, generating clear seismic and infrasound signals. The material released in two sudden rock avalanches separated in time by about 1.5 hours. The magnitudes for the two slides were determined to be M_L 2.5 and 2.4 and M_SW 5.0 and 4.9, respectively. Seismic signals with durations approaching two minutes from both rock avalanches were recorded on stations of the University of Utah (UU) regional seismic network and other networks at distances of ~6 to greater than 400 km. In addition, the first event was recorded on seven UU infrasound arrays at distances of ~13 - 400 km and the second at five infrasound arrays between ~57 and 400 km distance. Comparison of the seismograms from the two slides show differences in the long-period energy. There are also clear differences in the infrasound observations. For example, at the closest array recording both slides, the duration of the infrasound signal for the first slide is much longer than for the second slide. In addition, infrasound attributed to the first rock avalanche resulted in multiple arrival observations at the three most distant arrays, while only one array had multiple arrivals for the latter event. For the five infrasound arrays, with detections for both rock avalanches, we look for signal differences by cataloging duration, amplitude, azimuth, dominant period, correlation coefficients, group and trace velocity. In addition, propagation modeling through ground-to-space (G2S) profiles will be performed to determine if atmospheric differences can account for the varying infrasound observations, and the source of the infrasound signal will be located using the Bayesian Infrasonic Source Location procedure. With a wealth of geophysical data we aim to determine if the seismic and infrasound signals have a common source and if the differences in the infrasound observations are related to path effects or any differences in the physical properties of the mass flows.