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Escondida copper mine

Open-pit copper in the Atacama, six years apart.

9.1 hectares changed — new construction · Before: 1 Nov 2017 – 28 Feb 2018 · After: 1 Nov 2023 – 28 Feb 2024 · -24.260, -69.070

BEFORE 2018-02

AFTER 2024-02

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9.1 haarea changed

6areas flagged

6,416 haarea examined

2satellites used

What changed, by type

4.0 haNew construction / earthworks

3.6 haNew water / flooding

1.5 haVegetation cleared

Land changes in both directions at once. SCOPE reports every type it measured, not only the one that makes the better headline.

What SCOPE found

New water / flooding — 2.5 ha
2.3 km south · 82% sure

New construction / earthworks — 1.7 ha
4.0 km east · between 28 Feb 2018 and 19 Dec 2023 · 88% sure

New construction / earthworks — 1.6 ha
3.4 km west · between 28 Feb 2018 and 19 Dec 2023 · 90% sure

New water / flooding — 1.1 ha
1.4 km east · between 28 Feb 2018 and 19 Dec 2023 · 87% sure

New construction / earthworks — 0.8 ha
3.3 km south-west · between 28 Feb 2018 and 19 Dec 2023 · 89% sure

How sure is this?

The strongest area (#1) has 82% confidence. It appears in 6 of 6 later clear images, so it is not a one-day artefact. Radar could not confirm or rule them out (normal for vegetation changes), so the result rests on repeated clear optical views and the seasonal comparison. Confidence measures how strong the evidence for real surface change is; it does not identify the cause or who did it.

How it was measured

SCOPE used Sentinel-2 optical imagery at 10 m, cloud-masked and combined over each period, Sentinel-1 radar as an independent check , and the same season in earlier years so normal seasonal change is not reported as real change. The analysis took 16 seconds.

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