Overview

Mine Type	Underground
Status	Care and Maintenance
Commodities	Lead Zinc Silver Gold
Mining Method	Cut & Fill Room-and-pillar Shrinkage stoping
Production Start	...
Snapshot	Taxco mine has been on strike since July 2007. The Taxco complex includes several underground mines (San Antonio, Guerrero, and Remedios) and a flotation plant. The ore contains lead and zinc concentrates, with some amounts of gold and silver. After several legal procedures, in August 2015, the Supreme Court decided to assert jurisdiction over the case and to rule on it directly. As of December 31, 2023, the case was pending resolution without further developments. It is expected that operations at the Taxco mine will remain suspended until the labor issues are resolved. There was no mine exploration drilling at Taxco during the three-year period ended December 31, 2023, due to the strikes.

Deposit type

• Vein / narrow vein
• Breccia pipe / Stockwork

Summary:

The Taxco district is stratigraphically formed of rocks from Jurassic to recent periods, which are described below, with emphasis on the mineralization control characteristics. The Taxco schist is composed of a series of schists and fylites, most likely from a volcanicsedimentary sequence of tufa and limonites. They represent a sequence of metamorphological arch and its age has been defined as Jurassic Medium. The Morelos formation from the Upper Cretaceous age (Apian-Turonian) lies on a discordant form over Taxco schist and its contact is several times marked by a clay zone (mylonites) and breccia, which implies a shifting of this unit over the schist (packs). The Mezcala formation is constituted by a sequence of shale and sandstone with some inter-stratified layers of limestone. Its base is calcarean. Its top tends to be rich in clay with thin limestone layers. The Balsas group is constituted by conglomerates and is sandy on its base, rests in discordance form on an erosioned surface from the Mexcala formation. The Tilzapotla Ryolite is the newest rock, which emerged in the district before the alluvial deposit. It is formed of flux, breccia, tuffaceous, ignimbrites and vitrophyrre of ryolite composition.

There are four types of ore deposits found in Taxco district. In order of importance they are as follows: fissure-filling veins, replacement veins, blanket-like replacement bodies (so called “mantos”), stock works and brecciate chimneys. The three first ones are intimately related and they were formed in the same era, although in different stages.

The veins reach up to two kilometers in length with a variable potency of thirty centimeters up to eight meters, which is the case of copper veins at the mines of Guerrero, Hueyapa and Palo Amarillo at the San Antonio mine; the Remedios mine has among other veins, El Muerto and El Cristo one kilometer long and five meters in average potency.

Economic ore is found in the deposit in veins. Ore mineral include argentiferous galena (PbS), sphalerite (ZnS), pyrargyrite (Ag3SbS3), and other sulfosalts, and replacement “mantos.” The most mineralized zones are in the vicinity of the veins with the limestone. The mineralization is more intensive in the base of the limestone and consists of sphalerite (ZnS), galena (PbS), pyrite (FeS) and magnetite (FeOFe2O3).

Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Processing

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Production

Operational metrics

Metrics	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015
Annual milling capacity	....	....	....	....	730 kt	730 kt	730 kt	730 kt	730 kt
Daily milling capacity	....	....	....	....				2,000 t	2,000 t

Personnel

Job Title	Name	Profile	Ref. Date
.......................	.......................		Aug 9, 2024