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Rio Tinto (ES)
Other Names:
Cerro Colorado, Atalaya, Filon Norte, Planes, San Dionisio
District:
Iberian Pyrite Belt
Commodities :
Copper, Gold, Lead, Silver, Zinc
The Rio Tinto group of orebodies and mines occupies an area approximately 4 x 2 km in size, to the north of the town of Rio Tinto, approximately 65 km NE of Huelva in south-west Spain. It has a 4000 year history of mining. Large scale operations commencing in 1873 were carried out by the British-owned Rio Tinto Company until, in 1954, they sold their properties to mostly Spanish owners. The mines closed in 2003. Some orebodies (e.g. Au-Ag gossans) were by that time exhausted; others (e.g. VMS & stockworks) were unprofitable at going metal prices. A large resource remains in the ground. Cerro Colorado was originally a low hill capped by a prominent ferruginous gossan, located 2 km NE from the township of Rio Tinto, in the core of the Rio Tinto anticline. The gossan formed in-situ, partly on remnants of an erosion-dissected massive pyritite lens, and partly on footwall stockwork. It was up to 40 m thick, and the modern mined resource has been estimated at ~8 Mt @ 50 g/t Ag, 2.8 g/t Au; however, the amount removed is not known and the resource is now completely exhausted. The greatest precious metal enrichment occurs at the base, in the presence of jarosite. The shape of the stockwork ore zone is cylindrical, and its surface dimensions are 2200 x 1000 m with a thickness of at least 450 m. The pre-mining reserve of ~200 Mt of ore @0.43% Cu, 0.1 g/t Au was contained in an overall resource of some 1,500 Mt of low-grade material carrying 0.15% Cu, 0.15% Zn, 7 g/t Ag, 0.07 g/t Au. Ore material consisted of a dense network of veinlets, stringers and disseminations of mainly pyrite, chalcopyrite and minor zinc/lead sulphides in intensely chlorite-altered (and at the fringe sericite-altered) felsic volcanics.
February 2004
DM Sample Photographs
3048-1 Cerro Colorado Gossans Legend
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3049-1 Cerro Colorado Stockwork Legend
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0108-1 Atalaya (San Dionisio) Legend
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3050-1 Planes Orebody Legend
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3051-1 San Dionisio, Planes Legend
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Other Descriptive Data
General Descriptions
Selected Bibliography
SEG Student Chapter Reports
Mineral Processing
Geology
Technical Reports
District Overview
Static Satellite
Bibliography (19kB)
Iberia 2014 - UNR SEG Student Chapter Report (3,974kB)
Iberian Overview 2013 - Fernando Tornos Presentation, PDAC (17,654kB)
Iberian Pyrite Belt 2014 - CODES SEG Student Chapter Report (2,708kB)
Iberian VHMS 1984 - Kirkham Photo Gallery (2,985kB)
Petrochemistry in Regional Exploration for VMS Deposits: Piercey 2008 [2.78 MB pdf] (2,848kB)
Rio Tinto 2001 - Utah SEG Student Chapter Photo Gallery (2,254kB)
Rio Tinto 2004 - Portergeo Deposit Description (48kB)
Rio Tinto 2013 - Corporate Technical Report (4,294kB)
Rio Tinto 2014 - Abbreviated Corporate Presentation (3,310kB)
Rio Tinto 2014 - Deposit Description (1,359kB)
Rio Tinto Localities Map (440kB)
Rio Tinto orefield overview (20kB)
Theses
Links
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Commodity Overviews
Advances in geological models & exploration methods for copper ± gold porphyry deposits
Advances in geological models & exploration methods for Cu ± Au porphyry deposits (presentation)
Sustainability of the Global Copper Industry
Alkalic Porphyry Cu-Au Deposits
Global IOCG Deposits
Cordilleran IOCG Deposits
Porphyry & Epithermal Systems 2009
Controls on Mineralisation SE Asia 2013 - Academic Presentation
Copper Recommended Deposits