Atacamite

specimen number:
2133315

location:
Quetena Mine, Antofagasta, Chile

description:
Deep green micro crystals of atacamite rich across the front of matrix. Neat locality example for the species.

The Quetena mine, located just west of Calama in the Chuquicamata mining district of the Antofagasta Region, Chile, is situated in an extremely arid and geologically complex setting. The deposit forms part of the prominent Toki porphyry copper cluster, which originated within a Late Eocene to Early Oligocene metallogenic belt. Intense supergene alteration of primary hydrothermal copper sulfides under hyper-arid conditions generated a thick, extensively developed near-surface oxidation zone rich in rare hydrated iron and copper sulfate minerals, including type-locality occurrences of hohmannite, metahohmannite, and bandylite. Small-scale underground mining and surface trenching for rich copper oxides occurred sporadically at the site throughout the 20th century, drawing steady interest from mineralogists due to its unusual secondary geochemistry. Industrial development accelerated significantly between 2011 and 2013 when the state-owned mining company CODELCO initiated comprehensive environmental impact studies and approved a 244 million dollar investment to convert the property into a satellite open-pit operation. Designed to offset falling ore grades during the Chuquicamata open-pit-to-underground transition, commercial open-pit extraction commenced in early 2015 to process copper oxide ores, continuing as a key component of the district's operational framework into the mid-2020s.

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