Punta del Cobre field workshop.   Following a comprehensive classroom workshop on the previous evening, the group spent most of the day on an expert field workshop in the Punta del Cobre district under the leadership of Carlos Arevalo of the Chilean Sernageomin. It demonstrated the context setting to the major Candelaria deposit and an impression of the anatomy of an important IOCG district, the geologic, structural and metallogenic setting, the distribution of alteration and different styles of mineralisation. Carlos Arevalo, a recognised expert on the district, had also led the classroom workshop on the previous evening. The classroom workshop was in two parts, an initial overview of the tectonic, geological and metallogenic setting of the IOCG deposits of the coastal belt of Chile, followed by a detailed introduction to the Punta del Cobre district and what we would see on the field workshop.
Photographs by Mike Porter.