How is copper mined?
Copper-bearing rock (ore) is blasted underground, scooped up by a loader, taken in large trucks to underground crushers, then hoisted to the surface in skips up one of the shafts. At the surface, the ore is crushed further, mixed with water and other special chemicals to remove the waste rock and float the copper ore so it can be skimmed off, then heated and treated in other ways to purify the copper and separate it from any and all other metals.
