Yanawayin landslide and remainings of buildings of the Chungar Mine - looking SW IMG 3273

Yanawayin Lake and Chungar landslide looking E IMG 3277

The Chungar Mine, inactive, exploited a polymetallic (Zn-Pb-Cu-Ag) skarn deposit in the high Andes of central Peru. It is located about 116 km NE of Lima, 57 km southwest of

Cerro de Pasco Cerro de Pasco is a city in central Peru, located at the top of the Andean mountains. It is the capital of the Pasco region, and an important mining center. At elevation, it is one of the highest cities in the world, and the highest or the sec ...

, and 82 km northwest of La Oroya in the (

Santa Cruz de Andamarca District Santa Cruz de Andamarca District is one of twelve districts of the province Huaral in Peru. Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática The Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática (INEI) ("National Institute of Statistics and ...

Huaral Province The Huaral Province is one of the nine provinces in the Lima Region of Peru. It was created by Law No. 21488 on May 11, 1976 by president Francisco Morales Bermúdez out of eight districts of the Canta Province and four of the Huaura Province. Geo ...

, Lima Region, , 4380

m.a.s.l. Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The com ...

). In 1971, a landslide-generated wave ("landslide tsunami") at the

Yanawayin Lake Yanawayin ( Quechua ''yana'' black, Ancash Quechua ''wayi'' house, "black house", ''-n'' a suffix, other spellings ''Yanahuain, Yanahuin, Yanahuni, Yanahuani'') is a lake in the central Peruvian Andes. It lies in the Lima Region, Huaral Province ...

destroyed most of the surface facilities and killed 200-600 persons, including miners in flooded underground workings. The mine was owned by Cia. Minera Chungar, S.A.C. After the 1971 disaster, this mining company, keeping the same name, transferred the operations 16 km NE to the Animón mine in the Huarón Mining District. Between 1995 and 2008, Compañía Minera Cerro S.A. rehabilitated some underground workings and had a small scale operation. Since 2015, the mining company Volcan is exploring the surroundings of the Chungar Mine (Romina project) including the Puagjanca area where a Zn-Pb-(Ag) ore body was discovered.Volcan 2019; Memoria Anual 2018; 199 p.

Confusion on the term "Chungar Mine"

The mining company Volcan through its now subsidiary Compañía Minera Chungar S.A.C., operates the polymetallic Animón and Islay mines, in the Huarón Mining District, located 16 km NE of the actual Chungar Mine, under the term "Mining Unit Chungar"Volcan, Mining units, retrieved on April 6, 2020
/ref> (Unidad minera ChungarVolcan, Unidades Mineras, retrieved on April 6, 2020
/ref>). The use by Volcan of this term "Chungar Mining Unit" has caused some confusion, and certain sources (e.g., the data base "alicia.concytec.gob.pe" and a WoodMackenzie Report) use wrongly the term of "Chungar mine" for the Animón mine.

Geological Frame

The Chungar skarn deposit belongs to the Miocene polymetallic belt of Central Peru.Noble, D. C., & McKee, E. H. (1999). The Miocene metallogenic belt of central and northern Peru. In: Geology and ore deposits of the Central Andes. Special Publication SEG, v. 7, p. 155–193. The skarn Zn-Pb-Cu-Ag mineralization occurs mainly at the western contact of the Chungar Granite with limestone of the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

Jumasha Formation and in roof pendants.Soler, P., & Bonhomme, M. G. (1988). Oligocene magmatic activity and associated mineralization in the polymetallic belt of Central Peru. Economic Geology v. 83, 657-663. Ore consists mainly of

sphalerite Sphalerite (sometimes spelled sphaelerite) is a sulfide mineral with the chemical formula . It is the most important ore of zinc. Sphalerite is found in a variety of deposit types, but it is primarily in Sedimentary exhalative deposits, sedimen ...

galena Galena, also called lead glance, is the natural mineral form of lead(II) sulfide (PbS). It is the most important ore of lead and an important source of silver. Galena is one of the most abundant and widely distributed sulfide minerals. It cryst ...

, chalcopyrite, and pyrrhotite in andradite skarn. Age determinations on the outcropping Chungar granite yield an age of 12.88 ± 0.36 Ma (Ar/Ar biotite plateau age)Bissig, T., Ullrich, T. D., Tosdal, R. M., Friedman, R., & Ebert, S. (2008). The time-space distribution of Eocene to Miocene magmatism in the central Peruvian polymetallic province and its metallogenetic implications. Journal of South American Earth Sciences, 26(1), 16–35. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2008.03.004 that is consistent with previous K-Ar age determinations. Similar skarn occurrences are known north and south of the Chungar Mine (e.g. Don Miguel prospect, , 8 km north of the Chungar Mine and 1 km E of the Chalhuacocha granodiorite, which was K-Ar dated at 10.0±0.3 Ma on biotite, and the Puagjanca ore body, 4 km to the south).

References

{{reflist Polymetallic Zn-Pb-Ag-Cu mines in Peru