Chuquicamata
The pit viewed from entrance
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| Location | |
|---|---|
| Region | Antofagasta Region |
| Country | Chile |
| Coordinates | 22°18′19.66″S 068°54′08.07″W / 22.3054611°S 68.9022417°WCoordinates: 22°18′19.66″S 068°54′08.07″W / 22.3054611°S 68.9022417°W |
| Production | |
| Products | Copper, gold |
| History | |
| Opened | 1882 |
| Owner | |
| Company | CODELCO |
Chuquicamata (choo-kee-kə-MAH-tə), or "Chuqui" as it is more familiarly known, is by excavated volume the largest open pit copper mine in the world, located in the north of Chile, just outside Calama at 2,850 m (9,350 ft) above sea level, 215 km (134 mi) northeast of Antofagasta and 1,240 km (770 mi) north of the capital, Santiago. Flotation and smelting facilities were installed in 1952; and expansion of the refining facilities in 1968 made 500,000 ton annual copper production possible in the late 1970s. The mine is owned and operated by Codelco, a Chilean state enterprise, since the Chilean nationalization of copper in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its depth of 850 metres (2,790 ft) makes it the second deepest open-pit mine in the world (after Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, United States).
There are several versions of the meaning of Chuquicamata. The most widely known seems to be that it means the limit (camata) of the land of the Chucos (chuqui). Another says that it means metal (chuqui) tipped wooden (camata) spear. A third says that it means the distance (camata) that a spear (chuqui) was thrown by an Atacameño to determine the size of the copper orebody that a god intended to give him as a reward. Yet another theory is that it means 'Pico de Oro' or 'Peak of Gold'.
The name Chuquicamata is a word from the Aymara language and refers to the chuco or chuqui Native American Indian group. They worked the copper deposits here in pre-Hispanic times to make their weapons and tools.
Besides the Incas and Spanish explorers, Chilean and English companies mined the brochantite veins from 1879 to 1912.
The opencast was the biggest pit in the world during the nineties. But it has lost its foremost position and the new Escondida Copper Mine is today the world's largest producing mine with 750,000 metric tons of production which was 5.6% of the world's production in 2000. Copper has been mined for centuries at Chuquicamata as was shown by the discovery in 1899 of "Copper Man", a mummy dated at about 550 A.D. which was found trapped in an ancient mine shaft by a fall of rock. It is also said that Pedro de Valdivia obtained copper horseshoes from the natives when he passed through in the early 16th Century.
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Wikipedia