Cerro Lindo is a Kuroko-style VMS deposit with economic grades of Zn, Cu, Pb, and Ag.

Mineralization is hosted by a pyroclastic unit composed of ash and lapilli-type polymictic tuffs with subrounded, well classified fragments. Some lapilli have centimetre-scale, pencil-like shapes, due to development of an incipient schistosity.

Eight styles of mineralization were identified at the Cerro Lindo deposit:
1. Pyritic, homogeneous, primary massive sulphide (SPP): This unit includes almost exclusively pyrite, less than 10% barite, and minor interstitial chalcopyrite. Its structure is equigranular, generally coarse grained (3 mm to 6 mm), but with fine-grained areas (0.4 mm to 2 mm)

2. Copper-rich, baritic homogeneous primary sulphides (Cu-SPB): This unit contains more than 50% total sulphides (including barite), and more than 10% barite. Barite is associated with sulphides because it was deposited from the same solution at the same time as the sulphides. Its structure is homogeneous, and it is composed of barite, pyrite, pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, and brown sphalerite. Sulphides typically occur as intergrowths and patches, and brown sphalerite is included in chalcopyrite grains. There is less pyrite than in the Zn-SPB unit (described below). The Cu-SPB is generally found within or near the contact with Zn-SPB and SPP.

3. Zinc-rich, banded, baritic primary sulphides (Zn-SPB): This unit comprises more than 50% of total sulphides (inc ........

Cerro Lindo has been operating since 2007, with production rates of approximately 7 Mtpa in the recent years. The mine is mechanized, using rubber-tired equipment for all development and production operations. Mining is carried out in ten separate orebodies, using bulk longhole stoping methods, with up to 30 m high stopes, in a primary, secondary, and tertiary sequence. Stopes are backfilled with a low-cement content paste fill made from flotation tailings in the surface paste plant and distributed to the underground via two vacuum filter trains.

The highest operating level is the 1970 m level, the lowest operating level is the 1550 m level, and the ultimate bottom level is planned to be the 1490 m level.

The mine is accessed through fifteen portals that service adits, drifts, and declines. The main ore flow is directed via the grizzly installations on the 1830 m level that feed the jaw crusher located on the 1820 m level. From the crusher discharge, the ore flows up to the surface stockpile areas via an inclined conveyor and out at the 1940 m level from where it continues to flow to the plant via inclined surface conveyors.

MINE METHOD
The stoping methods employed at Cerro Lindo include the bulk Sublevel Longhole Stoping (SLS) method, which accounts for the majority of the production, and the Cut and Fill (C&F) method, utilized where necessary such as for the mining of sill pillars which require a more conventional method for economi ........

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