The Sungun copper mine ( ) is located in

Varzaqan Varzaqan ( fa, ورزقان; also Romanized as Varzeqān and Warzagan; formerly, Karzigan (Persian: كَرزيگَن), also Romanized as Kārzigān and Karzygan) is a city in the Central District of Varzaqan County, East Azerbaijan provinc ...

county,

East Azarbaijan East Azerbaijan Province ( fa, استان آذربایجان شرقی ''Āzarbāijān-e Sharqi''; az-Arab, شرقی آذربایجان اوستانی) is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is located in Iranian Azerbaijan, bordering Armenia, ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, 75 km north west of the provincial town of

Ahar Ahar ( fa, italic=yes, اهر, az, اهر) is a city and capital of Ahar County, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran. According to the 2016 census, Ahar was the fourth most populated city of the province with a population of 100,641 in 20,844 fam ...

. It is the most important geologic and industrial feature in the area and is the largest open-cast copper mine in Iran and is in the primary stages of extraction. The reserves are estimated to be as much as 995 million

ton Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean * the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds ...

s of

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

ore. The ore is processed directly at a

concentration plant In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', ''molar concentration'', ''number concentration'', a ...

at the mine. The capacity of the concentration plant is 170,000 tons of copper concentrates, with plans to expand to 300,000 tons.

References

# Singer, D.A., Berger, V.I., and Moring, B.C. (2008): Porphyry copper deposits of the world: Database and grade and tonnage models, 2008. US Geological Survey Open-File Report 2008–1155. # Hezarkhani, A., and Williams-Jones, A.E. (1998): Controls of alteration and mineralization in the Sungun porphyry copper deposit, Iran; evidence from fluid inclusions and stable isotopes. Economic Geology 93(5), 651–670. # Hezarkhani, A., Williams-Jones, A.E., and Gammons, C.H. (1999): Factors controlling copper solubility and chalcopyrite deposition in the Sungun porphyry copper deposit,

. Mineralium Deposita 34, 770–783. # Tahmasebi, P., Hezarkhani, A., and Mortazavi, M. (2010): Application of Discriminant Analysis for Alteration Separation; Sungun Copper Deposit, East Azerbaijan,

. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences 6(4), 564–576. # Hezarkhani, A. (2006): Petrology of the intrusive rocks within the Sungun Porphyry Copper Deposit, Azerbaijan, Iran. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 27(3), 26–340.

References

See also