UNIVER SIDAD DE CONCEPCIÓN

DEPARTAMENTO DE CIENCIAS DE LA TIERRA

10° CONGRESO GEOLÓGICO CHILENO 2003

Ages and Duration of Brecciation and Mineralization Events in the Giant Miocene and
Pliocene Río Blanco-Los Bronces Copper Deposit of Central Chile

M. Alexandra Skewes1, Carmen Holmgren2 and Sandra Gonzalez3

1
Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0399, U.S.A.
(Skewes@colorado.EDU); 2 Carlos Silva Vildósola 9895-I, La Reina, Santiago, Chile; 3 Compañía Minera
Disputada de Las Condes, Pedro de Valdivia 294, Santiago, Chile

It is clear from the geology alone that the giant Miocene and Pliocene Río Blanco-Los Bronces breccia copper
deposit in central Chile formed by the emplacement of multiple igneous intrusions and mineralized magmatic-
hydrothermal breccia pipes into a relatively small area. The sequential emplacement of plutons and breccias,
coupled with uplift and erosion, caused extreme telescoping, and even late Pliocene intrusions now outcrop at the
surface. Dating the age and duration of mineralization events in giant copper deposits such as Río Blanco-Los
Bronces deposit has been difficult due to superimposition of the multiple events that characterize these systems. The
multiple high-temperature magmatic and hydrothermal events, and subsequent periods of lower temperature
hydrothermal and supergene alteration, have altered the original minerals of both the host-rocks and also the
mineralogy of the earliest stages of mineralization and alteration, and as a result produced intensive resetting of
ages.

K-Ar studies carried out by mine geologists during the 1980’s at Río Blanco-Los Bronces have shown that the
intrusive rocks that both host and cut mineralization formed over a period of several million years. These early
studies were limited by the then available K-Ar radiometric dating methods, but were done with rigorous geological
control by local geologists, and they serve as a solid basis for understanding the evolution of the igneous rocks
associated with these deposits. More recent studies, using modern Ar-Ar and Re-Os techniques, promise more
accurate method for determining the age and duration of mineralization, but unfortunately many of these studies
have the same limitations as the early ones due to thermal resetting by later plutons and hydrothermal events.
Although Re-Os dates in molybdenite may not be easily reset, this sulfide is restricted to only some stages and
paragenetic sequences of mineralization and cannot be used to date all copper mineralization and brecciation stages
in these deposits.

In Río Blanco-Los Bronces, as in the other two giant deposits of central Chile, most of the mineralization is
associated within and around breccias. Breccias at Río Blanco-Los Bronces are tightly distributed along a 6 by 2
km zone with a NW-SE orientation, and are cut by late barren dacite porphyry intrusions. We dated breccia matrix
minerals in samples selected based on detail mapping by Ar-Ar methods. We dated at least 2 cogenetic minerals
from the matrix in each breccia. The oldest dates obtained were in isolated breccias located on the west side of the
deposit, where fewer pipes or intrusions are present. Younger dates were determined in matrix minerals and clasts in
breccias located in the more complex central area of the Andina Mine where multiple pipes and intrusions occur.
Our results show that early brecciation events started at 14. 1 Ma and breccias formed during approximately a 10
million year span. The oldest breccias are Fe-rich and Cu- and S-poor actinolite-magnetite breccias. Introduction of
Cu sulfides occurs in breccias beginning at 8.5 Ma and copper mineralization was emplaced in multiple episodes of
brecciation that lasted for at least 4 million years.

These data imply that the giant Río Blanco-Los Bronces copper deposit is giant in part because it formed by
multiple mineralization events that developed over an extended period of time of several million years. Similar
results have also been obtained for El Teniente deposit.

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