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Location: 20 km S from Copiapó, Chile
Interior Puente Ojancos Km. 9Tierra AmarillaChile1530000
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The Española project is in the south portion of Candelaria-Punta del Cobre district, 2.5 kilometres southwest from the Candelaria open pit. It occurs in the contact aureole between the Copiapó batholith and sedimentary and volcano-sedimentary rocks of the Chañarcillo Group and the Punta del Cobre Formation in a tectonically depressed block controlled by San Gregorio fault system. The copper mineralization (oxides, sulphides and mixed) is hosted mainly in brown garnet skarn levels and in quartz hornfels in the upper part of the stratigraphic sequence (Abundancia Formation) with mantos characteristics.The main lithological types on surface are assigned to the Abundancia Formation and were affected by different metamorphic processes during emplacement of the Copiapó batholith. In the eastern portion of the area, there is a fault contact with the volcanic and volcanoclastic rocks of the Punta del Cobre Formation.MineralizationIn the Española project area, the primary dominant copper sulphide is chalcopyrite found as clusters and in disseminated form commonly associated with brown garnet porphyroblasts. Gangue minerals are pyrite and iron oxides (magnetite-hematite). Near the surface and down to a depth of approximately 70, the mineralization is oxidized, characterized by the presence of chrysocolla, malachite, native copper, diogenite and bornite.The mineralized bodies are arranged as mantos and are hosted mainly in the brown garnet skarn and in less proportion in silica hornfels. Locally in the south part of the project veins and veinlets of metric thicknesses are observed that were interpreted in parallel to the Española vein-fault.Deposit TypesThe copper-gold sulphide mineralization present at the Candelaria Copper Mining Complex isgenerally referred to as iron oxide copper gold (IOCG). Depending on lithology and the structuralsetting, the polymetallic sulphide mineralization can occur as veins, hydrothermal breccias,replacement mantos, and calcic skarns (Sillitoe, 2003).
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