La Pita
| La Pita Mine | |
|---|---|
 Las Pita Mine Maripi, Boyaca, Colombia | |
| Location | |
| State/province | Boyaca |
| Country | Colombia |
| Regulatory authority | |
| Authority | Ejercito Colombia |
| Website | https://www.ejercito.mil.co |
| Production | |
| Commodity | EMERALDS |
| Production | Colombia produced 1.782.058 Carats in 2015 up 15% from 2014 |
| Employees | 100 |
| Year | 2016 |
The La Pita an emerald mine located in a Colombian emerald mining area that is neighboring some of Colombia's largest emerald mines, Cunas, Totomas, Polveros and Espanoles. It is located 200 km (124.27 mi) north-west of Bogota, Colombia in the western emerald belt , and about 235 km (146.02 mi) west of the Chivor which is in the eastern emerald belt. It is 100% owned and operated by Colombian company, Zuliana De Esmeraldas Ltda.
History
La Pita is one of Colombia's largest emerald mines in Colombia, tantamount to its competitor Puerto Artuto (Now, Muzo - it is owned and operated by Mineria Texas Colombia - MTC) 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 rounded a corner on a decent towards Rio Minero (Miners River) and noticed a yellowish patch of earth followed by the famous black carbonate altered shale, Muzo formation. This area is known as "Amariallal" and led to the birth of La Pita. The entrance of the mine was first opened in a ravine "Quebrada" at the bottom of the mountain near Rio Minero and extends some 500 meters 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, however in earlier times there had been a dispute between the border between the two mines and both groups founded the mine Consorcio which is now defunct. The agreement was that Consorcio was able to mine 35 meters north and south of the actual title border. Today the building structures and campsite are legally on the property of Cunas. Both company's respect their neighbors and are actively mining each respective legal title.
Recently, La Pita had entered into an LOI agreement with a publicly traded company, FURA Emeralds Inc. "(TSX VENTURE:FUR) announces that it, through a wholly owned subsidiary, has entered into a binding letter of intent (the "LOI") with Zuliana De Esmeraldas Ltda. ("Zuliana") to become the operator of the La Pita Emerald Mine in Boyacá, Colombia..."[1] This has since been terminated [2]
Following that, a second Canadian company entered into a non-binding MOU agreement and was unable to successfully close on the contract. In 2016, a third company is entering into agreements for 100% of the operations at La Pita and to acquire a stake in the Zuliana De Esmeraldas Ltda.
Geology
La Pita mine is located in the Muzo Formation, operations are currently focused wholly in the footwall of the Rio 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 cm) calcite veins (observed between 070/35 and 320/65) 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.
Muzo Formation
Muzo formation (K1m - Hauterivian-Barremian age) This unit, outcropping in the sector of Las Pavas, Peñas Blancas, Coscuez, also appears in Vélez, Chiquinquirá, La Palma, is part of the flanks of La Chapa-Borbur Anticlinal, also observed in the syncline of Otanche, in the sector of Coscuez, in the region of Muzo and Calcetero, also part of the syncline of El Almendro and form The nucleus of the Pauna Anticlinal.
This unit houses most of the emerald-producing mines in the region such as the Coscuez area; Although it also has non-producing mines, so it is of great interest for exploration. The Muzo Formation is a generally calcareous sequence, however to the north of the Ibacapí Fault, it is observed to be weathered and its calcareous composition is not recognized and to the north of Pauna it has a siliceous character. In general it is composed of dark gray calcareous lodolites with lens interpositions and limestone concretions, in addition it is common to find pyrite and calcite veins. These lodolites are interspersed with sandy siltstones and quartz sandstones. Towards the middle of the segment arise lodolites and albitized limestone, somewhat calcareous, at this level appear a breciated and mineralized zone with veins of calcite and sheets of oxidized sulphides. The upper part of the segment is interspersed with layers of gray lodolites with layers of siltstones containing fauna depicted in ammonite molds. At the bottom of this unit is the La Marina mine and you can continue to the south the emerald mines of La Pita, Consorcio, Totumos, Polveros and others. The First calcareous package becomes thicker towards the south, it is as well as in the La 22 mine La Pita, has a thickness of 2 meters and in the sector of Totumos and Polveros reaches 45 meters and is made up of intercalations of limestone (micrita), loam and sandy limolites. The zone of hydrothermal breccias that is immediately above the calcareous rocks, in the Mine the Pita has a thickness of approximately 30 meters and being this one sector of the mines Totumos can reach to have 50 meters. This unit in the area of Coscuez and Muzo presents minerals of emerald, here its characteristic remains limestone in layers of calcareous limolites interspersed with calcareous lodolites. To the south of the area, this unit presents similar characteristics; Acosta and Ulloa (2001), show a stratigraphic column along the La Palma-Yacopí road, where they conclude that this unit is composed of a black terrígena micrograin (marl) with a solid appearance with black calcareous lodolite intercalations towards the In the upper part, intercalations of clayey black shale with gypsum flakes and abundant pyritic micritical concretions appear, some with ammonites (Reyes et al., 2006).[3]
Mining licence
The La Pita concession agreement is active and registered with the NMA (ANM) National Mining Agency of Colombia. www.cmc.gov.co:8080[4]
The title holders of Las Pavas have a 30 year exploration/exploitation license, this title granted the titleholder the exclusive right to extract the corresponding minerals and to conduct the necessary efforts to explore, exploit, process, transport and ship the relevant minerals. These titles have a 30-year term.
Mine Safety & Security
Site security currently has several weak points, from the working face to processing of potential ore. The mine is not currently managed with consideration for who is in the mine when it is open and material isn’t properly processed before being dumped and accessed by the general public. Improvement in security would be relatively simple both from a capital expenditure and implementation perspective. There are 4 points of access, which can be controlled by guards, cameras and doors/walls. The ore would need to be handled differently than it currently is, as there is a substantial amount of material being moved out of the mine and into public area, with only the identified mineralization isolated, but emeralds being present in the other material after. Although effort is made to capture emeralds coming off the face, it has been demonstrated that there are emeralds winding up in the tailings with regularity, of variable quality. The two primary security issues are, access to the mine site when the workings are open and ore processing. Porto Gringo access to the north may represent the greatest weakness to securing the site right now, because of the agreement to allow access to the neighbouring operation.
The mining region, despite its poor reputation is actually safe and community orientated, the violence is now a faint memory of the past.[citation needed] Security in the mine is a colaboration between private security, National Police of Colombia and the Ejército Nacional de Colombia. This presence provides for a very secure work place and community support, where by the Police and Military often participate in community social projects ranging from building homes, aqueducts and road maintenance.
References
- ^ Market Wire. "Fura Emeralds Inc". Retrieved 15 March 2016.
- ^ Market Wire. "Fura Emeralds Inc". Retrieved 15 April 2016.
- ^ TIPOLOGÍA Y CONDICIONES DE FORMACIÓN DE LAS MANIFESTACIONES HIDROTERMALES DEL SECTOR ESMERALDIFERO “PEÑA COSCUEZ” (MUNICIPIO SAN PABLO DE BORBUR, BOYACA), LAURA MILENA ORTEGA MEDINA Proyecto de grado presentado como requisito para optar el título de Geóloga Director: Ph. D. LUIS CARLOS MANTILLA FIGUEROA, Codirector: M. Sc. OSCAR MAURICIO CASTELLANOS ALARCÓN, pp. 22
- ^ National Mining Agency mining title and solicitation website repository - www.cmc.gov.co:8080
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