What is it about?
This is the only known mining district containing tin and bismuth in Chile, which is famous for copper and gold. The tin deposits in the Andes occur 250 km to the east, in Bolivia
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Why is it important?
The tin deposit appears to have acquired its metal from the crystalline basement, which in this area is a remnant of North America left behind in South America about 1000 million years ago. Also, the tin deposit seems to be related to hydrothermal activity generated not by igneous activity, buy by expulsion of fluids thrusting when the Andes was compressed and its crust became 80 km thick.
Perspectives
Tin and bismuth are strategic metals, and if the geology produced one deposit, it probably generated others.
Dr. Marcos Zentilli
Dalhousie University
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This page is a summary of: Capitana mine, Tignamar district, a unique tin – bismuth concentration in the Chilean Central Andes, 250 km west of the Bolivian Tin Belt: Link to the Proterozoic-Paleozoic basement Belen inlier and the Arequipa-Antofalla terrane, a probable remnant of..., Journal of South American Earth Sciences, February 2024, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.jsames.2023.104747.
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