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What on earth

Porphyry Copper Deposits – Chuquicamata

Chuquicamata is located in one of the driest parts of the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. Superlatives are needed. The deposit has been mined for ages (since pre-Hispanic times), and the mine is the largest open pit copper mine in the world – ca. 8,000,000 m2, and 825 m deep. It is visited by some 35,000 people every year.
The mineralisation is related to faulting, folding and igneous activity in late Mesozoic and early Tertiary.
Several factors have contributed to the concentration of the Chuquicamata ores, but batholith emplacement plays a central role. I shall not go into a definition of Porphyry Copper Deposits, but only say that they are low grade copper deposits (only) worth mining because they are (very) large.

About visiting the mine: read From a gaping hole in the earth: China-bound copper, tonne after tonne at Yahoo News of 4 December 2005 http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051204/sc_afp/chilecopperchina_051204051717

Ole

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