Moab

Yesterday I got the chance to visit one of my company's mine sites in Moab, UT.  It was the only site I hadn't been to and it was also my first time in Moab.  Can I just say that Moab is GORGEOUS!  Can you imagine this being your commute to work everyday?

Here we are coming up to the mine:

Here are the four of us that were taking the mine tour:

The mine in Moab is a solution mine which is a mining process by which potash is extracted from mineralized beds by injecting salt-saturated brine into a potash ore body.  The density of the brine increases as potash dissolves in the brine.  The dense, potash-rich solvent then sinks to the bottom of the mine where extraction wells pump the salt and potash saturated brine to the surface for solar evaporation.  Solar evaporation is a mineral concentration process where solar energy is used to evaporate water and crystallize out the salt and potash contained in the brine. 

Below is a picture of one of our solar evaporation ponds that is still full of water and then another of a bed that is fully evaporated and ready for "harvest".  The giant machine is called a scraper and it picks up all the ore in the evaporated bed.

To give you an idea of how huge the scrapers are, I took a picture standing by one if its replacement tires. 

The mine tour was extremely interesting and informative.  It didn't hurt that the setting was amazing.