La Pita
Entrance to the mine
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| Location | |
|---|---|
 La Pita Mine
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| Location | Maripí, Muzo |
| Department | Boyacá |
| Country |
 Colombia
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| Coordinates | 05°34′N 74°04′W / 5.567°N 74.067°WCoordinates: 05°34′N 74°04′W / 5.567°N 74.067°W |
| Production | |
| Products | Emeralds |
| History | |
| Opened | 2016 |
| Owner | |
| Company | Zuliana De Esmeraldas Ltda |
| Website | Website La Pita |
| Year of acquisition | 2015 |
La Pita is an emerald mine located in the western belt of the Colombian emerald mining area. It is owned and operated by the Colombian company, Zuliana De Esmeraldas Ltda.
La Pita is one of Colombia's largest emerald mines in Colombia, tantamount to its competitor, previously called Puerto Artuto, at present known as the Muzo Mine. La Pita has been one of the biggest contributors to Colombia's emerald production at times producing more than 80% of the total output of emeralds in Colombia. La Pita was discovered when an access road was being built, the workers and owners of the land descended towards Río Minero and noticed a yellowish patch of earth accompanied by the black carbonate altered shales of the Muzo Formation. This area is known as Amariallal and marked the establishment of La Pita Mine. The entrance of the mine was first opened in a ravine at the bottom of the mountain near Río Minero and extends approximatelt 500 metres (1,600 ft) until the tunnel makes contact with the principle fault line running through the length of the La Pita property.
La Pita is north of neighboring mine Cunas. Previously, a dispute between the two mines existed and both groups founded a mining agreement, that is defunct today. The agreement proposed that mining 35 metres (115 ft) north and south of the border between the mining districts was allowed by both parties. Today, the building structures and campsite are located on the property of Cunas.
Recently, La Pita had entered into an agreement with a publicly traded company, FURA Emeralds Inc. This has since been terminated.
Following that, a Canadian company entered into a non-binding agreement and was unable to successfully close on the contract. In 2016, a third company was entering into agreements for full operation at La Pita Mine and to acquire a stake in Zuliana De Esmeraldas Ltda.
La Pita mine is mining emeralds from the Muzo Formation, operations are currently focused wholly in the footwall of the Río Minero Fault. The property lies on a productive portion of the fault, with ~1 km of the NNE, moderate to steeply dipping fault (~025/75(?)) running along the long-axis of the property. The Rio Minero fault is characterized by an ~80m wide, very irregular, but sharp contact breccia zone. This breccia is a carbonate altered, with minor content kaolinite altered clasts, localized fluorite matrix, polymicitic carbonate altered shale and carbonate vein clasts, laminated to massive euhedral to anhedral carbonate matrix, chaotic order, clast-supported to matrix-support, fine to very coarse unsorted sharp clast contacts, sub-angular to angular. At present the mine is focused only on the footwall of the fault, exploiting oblique fractures in the Muzo Formation shales of the western flank of the fault. There appears to be a periodicity to the occurrence of variable thickness (1 to 30 centimetres (0.39 to 11.81 in)) calcite veins (observed between 070/35 and 320/65 orientations), that are the primary target for emerald production. The intersections of vein sets are a fertile setting and may represent an upgrading feature. Where these secondary fractures intersect with the primary vein orientation, anecdotally it has been observed that there appears to be an improvement in both quality (colour and clarity) as well as, sometimes, quantity/size. These oblique vein sets (which may simply be conjugate fractures as a product of how the faulting influenced the host Muzo Formation (rheology during formation)) represent the primary source of emeralds in the current operations at La Pita. These vein sets are productive up to several meters away from the fault itself.
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Wikipedia