Month: March 2015

Tonight we have taken over the Ayelen’s common room for a celebration. Happy birthday, Brie!







We’re visiting the “Walmart of Florence” on our way back to the hotel in Calama, after a fantastic visit to the Spence mine. We need power adapters, water for tomorrow, snacks, post cards, etc. 



And, of course, replacements for the stolen luggage. Though, the selection is… limited…



At the end of today’s tour Spence provided each of us with a representative sample of atacamite and their end-product copper.

In return for our excellent experience today, we rewarded our awesome guides with UM EARTH T-Shirts.

After another excellent experience with mining company cafeteria food, we are off to look at core from the Spence repository. Thanks to BHP Billton for providing lunch today!

The Spence repository holds 760km of core from over 3000 drill sites. Mostly stored outside at the site. 



We’re looking at three example cores from Spence, including one from the initial prospecting for and discovery of Spence. 











Next up, Freddy, the mine geologist, and his colleagues, provide us with an overview of the geology and operations at spence. 

Both oxide and sulfide copper ore are being mined here. Every few months they begin a campaign focusing on processing one type of concentrate or the other; oxides take about 200 days of acid treatment and sulfide 500 days. Copper recovery here is expected to carry on for another 50 years. 

The ore body has been well characterized from drill core data visualized with spatial software, like ArcGIS or Vulcan. 

At Spence, unlike other copper porphyries in the area, it is very easy to distinguish the mineralized porphyry rock from the host rock. It also provides one of the most complete representations of the zones of mineralization in this type of porphyry deposit; contrasted with our visit to two different sites yesterday to see both oxide and sulfide mineralization.