Silver

specimen number:
8282038

location:
Uchucchuacua mine, Oyon, Lima, Peru

description:

An aesthetic grouping of native silver wires with little attached matrix. Classic material from this locality likely collected in the very early 2000's.

The Uchucchacua mine, located in the Oyon Province of the Lima Department in Peru, is an ultra-high-grade underground silver, lead, and zinc operation world-renowned for producing exceptional collector specimens of pink rhodochrosite and rare silver sulfosalts. Geologically, the deposit is a premier example of a carbonate-replacement and skarn system hosted within the Upper Cretaceous limestones of the Jumasha Formation, which were heavily folded and faulted during the Andean orogeny. Intrusive Miocene dikes and sills injected mineral-rich hydrothermal fluids into these limestone beds, triggering intense metasomatism that deposited massive base metal sulfides alongside manganese-rich silicates and carbonates in extensive veins and replacement bodies. Formal exploration and development by Compania de Minas Buenaventura began in 1970, with commercial milling operations launching in 1975. Underground extraction operated nearly continuously for decades, and despite a temporary suspension of mining activities in late 2021 due to localized economic and community negotiations, exploration resumed in 2023, keeping this iconic high-altitude locality active into the 2020s.

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