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Geometry and geology
Published in Xavier Emery, Serge Antoine Séguret, Geostatistics for the Mining Industry, 2020
Xavier Emery, Serge Antoine Séguret
El Teniente is the largest porphyry copper deposit in the world and is located in the Rancagua region of central Chile, about 70 km southeast of Santiago. Mining started in 1905, and the deposit is currently exploited from underground by panel caving (Hustrulid and Bullock, 2001) with more than 3,000 km of galleries.
Formation of Cu–Au porphyry deposits: hydraulic quartz veins, magmatic processes and constraints from chlorine
Published in Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 2023
G. N. Phillips, J. R. Vearncombe, J. D. Clemens, A. Day, A. F. M. Kisters, B. P. Von der Heyden
Experimental work on H2O solubility in silicate liquids (e.g. Goranson, 1931; Hamilton et al., 1964; Tamic et al., 2001) provides information on maximum, theoretical H2O contents. However, crustal melting typically produces magmas with only a few per cent of H2O in the melt, perhaps up to 6 wt% in rare cases (Clemens et al., 2020; Clemens & Watkins, 2001). Fluid saturation may occur as the proportion of silicate melt decreases during cooling and crystallisation of the magma. At this stage, partitioning of different metals can occur, with some enriched in the silicate magma and others in the aqueous fluid, depending upon the fluid composition. For example, Cl is predicted to partition into the aqueous fluid relative to the silicate magma (Candela & Piccoli, 2005). The composition of the aqueous fluid reflects those elements from the magma that are prone to partition into a fluid, together with any other elements that the fluid can dissolve from country rocks. Even with the effective partitioning of any Cl into the aqueous fluid, there is a counterbalance between a small volume of fluid potentially having high Cl or a larger volume of fluid necessarily having a lower concentration of Cl. This is analogous to the concept of an R-factor in orthomagmatic Cu–Ni(PGE-) deposits. Consequently, there is still a considerable challenge to explain the large volumes of hypersaline fluids associated with giant ore systems such as El Teniente.
Toward the Implementation of Circular Economy Strategies: An Overview of the Current Situation in Mineral Processing
Published in Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Review, 2022
Luis A. Cisternas, Javier I. Ordóñez, Ricardo I. Jeldres, Rodrigo Serna-Guerrero
The Chilean mining industry, protagonist of the world copper activity, has some experience in remining issues; some of which have been carried out for decades, however under an unsystematic approach, such as the case of copper recovery from tailings gutters in the Chuquicamata and El Salvador mines, in the mid-20th century. Among other more recent initiatives are the reprocessing of tailings produced by the El Teniente mine by Minera Valle Central, which is carried out with high standards of efficiency, the retreatment of tailings produced by Minera Candelaria by the Compañía de Aceros del Pacífico. Since 2005 the company EcoMetales, a subsidiary of Codelco Technologies Ltd., has been treating foundry dusts and refining effluents for extractive purposes to recover valuable metal species. Regarding the reprocessing of leaching debris, this has been an activity carried out in situ by several mining companies, as part of their strategies for better use of resources.
Procedure for estimating broken ore density distribution within a draw column during block caving
Published in Mining Technology, 2021
Leonardo Dorador, Erik Eberhardt, Davide Elmo
The bulking and swell factors are the parameters most often reported in relation to cave mining planning designs. This relates to its use to determine the rate of draw to ensure a uniform rate of caving (Laubscher et al. 2017). Values of 108–116% have been suggested by Laubscher (1994) for coarse and fine fragmentation, respectively, but values as high as 169% have been reported at the El Teniente mine (Millan and Brzovic 2013). Table 1 presents swell factor values reported for different caving operations based on a review of the published literature. Also included for comparison is Table 2, which reports values derived from numerical modelling studies. It should be recognized that the latter are interpreted values subject to the assumptions and inputs required for the numerical methods used. The data in Table 1 highlight the large variation of swell factors reported by different caving operations. It is noted that most of these cite gross values based on differences between the extraction and cave volumes. Of interest are the swell factors reported by different authors for the El Teniente mining complex, which include a historical range of 130–140% but also include values as low as 119% and as high as 169%. These lower and upper values can be explained by the fact that they encompass different production zones, mining levels and time periods, as well as different measurement methods.