Our mine tour begins today at the Esperanza site of Centinela, in part a subsidiary of Antofagasta Minerals. We met the site geologist, Hugo, and received a safety orientation and an overview of the geology and mining operations.
The shape of the porphyry deposit at Esperanza, when you back out more recent faulting, matches well the generalized “lightbulb” model many students learned about in EARTH 380 (Mineral Resources, Economics, and the Environment). This site ranks as the 9th largest copper producer in the world.
We split into two groups, as they can only accommodate a limited number at one time viewing the pit and plant area. The other half examined exploration cores to learn about different parts of the deposit. After which we swapped places.
Thank you to Centinela for providing lunch to us in the company cafeteria as well.
Finally we visited the operations at the El Tesero site. Here we have an oxide-type deposit to contrast with the sulfide type at Esperanza.
We also took the time for some mineral collecting, finding atacamite, copper-oxide, gypsum, chrysacola, etc.
Thanks to Centinela for a great mine visit!
