The regional geological setting is the Altiplano Puna plateau, an area of uplift that began during the middle to late Miocene (10 – 15 Ma). Red-bed sediments formed during the early to middle Miocene in areas of structural depressions. During the middle to late Miocene, a combination of thrust faulting, uplift and volcanism led to the sedimentary basins becoming isolated. The Cordilleras and major watersheds bound the Puna area to the west and east. Sedimentation in these basins began with the formation of alluvial fans at the feet of the uplifted ranges and continued with the development of playa sandflats and mudflat facies.

In basin areas, the watersheds are within the basins; there are no outlets from the basins. Ongoing runoff, both surface and underground, continued solute dissolution from the basins and concentration in their centres where evaporation is the only outlet. Evaporite minerals occur both as disseminations within a clastic sequence and as discrete beds.

The Salar system in the Hombre Muerto basin is considered a typical mature salar. The Hombre Muerto basin has an evaporite core that is dominated by halite. Basin margins are steep and are interpreted to be fault-controlled. The east basin margin is predominantly Pre-Cambrian metamorphic and crystalline rocks belonging to Pachamama formation. Volcanic tuff and reworked tuffaceous sediments, most likely from Cerro Galan complex, together with tilted Tertiary rocks, are common along the w ........

There are two wellfields considered for production; one in the East and one in the Southwest. For Stage 1, only wells from the East wellfield will be used, while Stage 2 will utilise the Southwest wellfield. The locations of production wells were selected to reduce long-term freshwater drawdown and maintain the highest possible brine grade.

Ten wells have been constructed for Stage 1, all wells will be connected through pipelines to a booster station that is be situated in a central location to the wellfield. The booster station combines brines from the different wells and acts as a brine pumping station to reach the ponds and provide a buffer for seasonal flow changes. The average flow from the brine wells to the first evaporation ponds will be approximately 159 litres per second (“L/s”) for Stage 1.

The production well locations were selected to reduce long-term freshwater level drawdown and maintain as high a brine grade as possible, given each well location and the potential for brine dilution. During wellfield construction, each production well will be tested and analysed immediately after construction.

Well depths, well filters, and well casing blind intervals sealed from pumping were designed based on the following factors:
• Location of lithium-bearing brine zones;
• Location of aquifer zones with comparatively large hydraulic conductivity;
• Location of existing fresh or brackish water zones, and/or future potential fo ........

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