Pascua-Lama Project

Chile / Coquimbo / Vicuca /
 copper mine, open-pit mine, gold mine, silver mine
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This is the pit area of the Pascua-lama project (Barrick co., Canada) for extracting gold in the Chilean Andes at a height of approximately 4,600 metres, around 660km North of the Santiago city.
As of 2014 Barrick is doing a controlled slow-down of this project. Environmental and social obligations are being taken care of while progress towards production is shutting down until financial and political problems are solved. Sitting across an international border of two countries that are often "unhappy" with each other might be part of the problem.

summer 2016 BARRICK has appointed a person to look into restarting the Chilean side
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   29°19'23"S   70°1'21"W

Comments

  • The Chilean Environmental Court has ruled that the project meets standards and may go ahead.
  • to preserve ice, cover it. That's how permafrost works. At 15,000 ft it won't take much...and...if you do it every year...there will be more and more ice in storage for summer melt months. It's easy to make a cryodam at 15,000 ft. Why can't anyone propose one? Must I be the one so suggest it? I strongly believe there could be lots more storage capacity if the "permafrost" effect is used. Sheesh guys...it doesn't take a genius to take a lesson from mother nature. Plus...the mine pit would make a good storage reservoir with a little of engineering. I know, I've done it and I have a high altitude chilean mining project of my own and there is no reason any water should go to waste as a result of mining. It makes me upset to read the leftist agitators fight with companies using paid spokesmen. Nobody is even trying to work together. The investors get discouraged and the farmers get scared, both for good reason. S. Johnson, Geologist and Owner, Milena Resources LLC,, USEPA retired. feel free to contact me. En-Fr-Es
  • Here is an excerpt of a professional looking report by opponents of the project. ...."Explosions in the preparation and extraction phase impact glaciers, lifting enormous clouds of dust and debris into the atmosphere that then soil glacier surfaces. The photograph on the cover of this report is of the controversial Toro 1 Glacier, which according to Barrick Gold has gold underneath it’s surface. Toro 1 has already been completely covered by debris/dust from explosions in Pascua Lama’s preparatory phase. The soiling of the surface of a glacier changes the glacier’s albedo (reflectivity) and can cause changes of the glacier’s melting point, bringing it into disequilibria and ultimately to its destruction." No, this is called, "pulling an assumption on you'. If dust always melted snow there would be no permafrost...right? In periglacial environments the soil layer is known to also have an insulating effect. Annual snow melts in summer and water infiltrates. The infiltration is halted by frozen soil at depth and a wet zone forms above the frozen zone. Depending on the particulars...that frozen zone can grow if more water is held than is lost before "freeze-up". The annual frost zone depth varies...thinning and thickening to buffer the freeze thaw cycle and the soil drainage capacity. Permafrost can actually grow into rock glaciers and even become exposed ground ice this way. So...the glaciers survival is not just a matter of albedo...it is a matter of insulation. If there isn't enough thermal protection, albedo dominates, the ground warms and the ice melts. If there is a lot of thermal protection...albedo does not count and the ice is preserved to become "permafrost". I find the simplistic arguments in papers sponsored by Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) Patagonia Wallace Global Fund, and The Digital Globe Foundation To be incomplete and misleading. I am aware, however, that without some opposition to these projects there would be nothing that would compel management types to consider water to be sufficiently valuable to be managed at all. Just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. 17,000,000 ounces of gold should not be just abandoned...somebody will come in and take over. It is not clear they will be more responsive, likely they will not have such deep pockets or have as much of a reputation to defend.
  • I hope my simplified discussion helps. I can add more but it is not really necessary to understand that the "albedo" argument is just a gimmick spouted by someone with an agenda...the permafrost effect is not a gimmick...it can be a useful tool that greatly exceeds the limitations of mere "albedo".
This article was last modified 8 years ago