Corta Atalaya
Interesting facts
- Corta Atalaya has often been called the largest open-pit mine in Europe, and in its day it ranked among the largest in the world.
- Archaeological evidence shows that ore was already being worked on this spot around 2400 BC, and Roman shafts and galleries were found here in the early 20th century.
- The switch to open-cast mining followed a ground collapse on 6 April 1906 that wrecked the underground workings begun in 1885 and left a large hollow at the surface.
- To strip an estimated 50 million cubic metres of overburden, the Rio Tinto Company bought four Bucyrus steam shovels, 12 steam locomotives and 300 wagons.
- Ore trains left the pit through the Naya tunnel to join the Riotinto railway until 1984, after which lorries took over the haulage.
- The last consignment of raw pyrite left the pit in October 1991, bound for a fertiliser factory in Huelva.
- Geologists class the deposit as volcanogenic massive sulphide, an ore type that here has yielded copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver.
- Remaining reserves have been estimated at about 645,000 tonnes of copper, 990,000 tonnes of zinc and 325,000 tonnes of lead.
- Since 2012 the pit has been protected as a Bien de Interés Cultural in Andalusia's general heritage catalogue.
Why it is worth it
Corta Atalaya is a hole in the earth on the scale of a landscape: an elliptical open-pit copper mine about 1,200 metres long, 900 metres wide and 350 metres deep, its walls stepped in concentric terraces of ochre, rust and grey down to a pool of water at the bottom. Worked for most of the 20th century and now silent and partly flooded, it is the most dramatic sight of the Riotinto mining district in the hills of Huelva province in western Andalusia.
The pit lies in the Iberian Pyrite Belt, a band of metal-rich sulphide deposits formed on an ancient sea floor some 300 to 350 million years ago. People have mined copper, silver and gold here for about 5,000 years: Tartessians and Iberians from around 3000 BC, followed by Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Visigoths and Moors. After centuries of neglect the mines were rediscovered in 1556 and worked again by the Spanish state from 1724, and in 1873 they were sold to a British consortium, the Rio Tinto Company, which gave its name to one of the world's largest mining corporations. Open-cast working in the western part of the San Dionisio ore body began in 1907, after subsidence had struck the older workings two years earlier. At its peak the mine employed 2,000 people. It was nationalised in 1954 and closed in 1992; since then water has filled the lowest levels.
The growth of the pit consumed the settlements around it. The village of La Atalaya, founded in 1883, had 823 inhabitants and 257 buildings in 1970; when the enlargement of the mine was approved that year, the whole village was demolished in 1971, and only fragments remain on the rim. The original town of Minas de Riotinto had earlier been moved to its present site for the same reason, and Spain's oldest golf club, founded in 1890, gave up its course to the excavation. The same sulphide-rich ground gives the nearby Río Tinto, the "coloured river", its red, strongly acidic water. The otherworldly scenery has served as a film location, including for the science-fiction film Proxima.
Getting there
Corta Atalaya lies on the edge of the town of Minas de Riotinto in the province of Huelva. Seville Airport (SVQ) is about 70 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Corta Atalaya is an open-pit copper mine in the city limits of Minas de Riotinto in the province of Huelva, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. It was actively mined until 1992. It is now owned by Atalaya Mining, formerly EMED Mining, through its 100%-owned subsidiary, EMED Tartessus SL.
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