Detailed information
Dimensions
110 x 115 x 64
mm
Weight
1641 g
Locality
El Guanaco Mine, Guanaco (Huanaco) Santa Catalina, Antofagasta Province Antofagasta Region, Chile
Condition
Net
El Guanaco mine is a remote opencast gold mine situated some 50 miles inland of the Pacific coast on the high plateau (2,500 m above sea level) alongside the main Andes mountains. The nearest town, Taltal, is over 60 miles away by road. Although the Type Locality for six species, many of these occur in individual pits, or were, in the case of Ceruleite, from an underground mine consumed by the later openpit. As an epithermal high sulphidation gold deposit the Native Gold is typically finely disseminated within fine-grained siliceous host rock and so to find visible gold in handspecimen is uncommon. This larger display specimen from the famous Siber and Siber Collection presents disseminated Native Gold, but as quite prominent visible 'sun', or 'flower'-like growths along a joint plane within the pale beige coloured massive siliceous matrix. The area of Native Gold coverage is quite extensive and makes for a really superb display specimen of the highest grade gold ore from El Guanaco mine.
