This is a list of mining areas in Colombia.[1] The mineral industry of Colombia is large and diverse; the country occupies the first place in mining areas per surface area in the world. In pre-Columbian times, mining of gold, silver, copper, emeralds, salt, coal and other minerals was already widespread. Precious metals as gold,[2] and silver,[3] platinum, nickel and coltan are located in different areas throughout the country. Colombia is the first producer of emeralds and as per February 2017 occupied a ninth position in the production of coal, produced in almost all of the departments of the country.[4][5] Platinum is mostly found in the Western and Central Ranges of the Colombian Andes.[6] Copper said to have been produced during colonial and later times apparently came from small shoots which may have been worked primarily for their gold content.[7] The largest gold mine in Colombia is scheduled to start operations in Buriticá, Antioquia.[8][9]
Emerald is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral beryl (Be3Al2(SiO3)6) colored green by trace amounts of chromium or sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7.5–8 on the Mohs scale. Most emeralds have much material trapped inside during the gem's formation, so their toughness (resistance to breakage) is classified as generally poor. Emerald is a cyclosilicate.
Muzo is a town and municipality in the Western Boyacá Province, part of the department of Boyacá, Colombia. It is widely known as the world capital of emeralds for the mines containing the world's highest quality gems of this type. Muzo is situated at a distance of 178 kilometres (111 mi) from the departmental capital Tunja and 118 kilometres (73 mi) from the capital of the Western Boyacá Province, Chiquinquirá. The urban centre is at an altitude of 815 metres (2,674 ft) above sea level. Muzo borders Otanche and San Pablo de Borbur in the north, Maripí and Coper in the east, Quípama in the west and the department of Cundinamarca in the south.
Trapiche emerald is a rare variety of the gemstone emerald, characterized by a six-arm radial pattern of usually black spokes separating areas of green emerald. If weathered, the black spokes may become light in color. Trapiche emerald is one of an assortment of trapiche or trapiche-type minerals. Others include trapiche ruby, sapphire, tourmaline, quartz, and chiastolite. The name comes from the Spanish term trapiche, a sugar mill, because of the resemblance of the pattern to the spokes of a grinding wheel. Emerald is a gem variety of the mineral beryl, and owes it distinctive green color to the presence of chromium and/or vanadium.
Chivor is a town and municipality in the Eastern Boyacá Province, part of the Colombian department of Boyacá. The mean temperature of the village in the Tenza Valley is 18 °C (64 °F) and Chivor is located at 215 kilometres (134 mi) from the department capital Tunja. Economic activity includes emerald mining.
Somondoco is a town and municipality in the Colombian Department of Boyacá. This town and larger municipal area are located in the Valle de Tenza. The Valle de Tenza is the ancient route connecting the Altiplano Cundiboyacense and the Llanos. The area is dotted with many such little towns all located at approximately the same altitude. Somondoco borders Almeida in the east, Guayatá in the west, Guateque and Sutatenza in the north and in the south the Cundinamarca municipality of Ubalá.
Mineral industry of Colombia refers to the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials in Colombia. Colombia is well-endowed with minerals and energy resources. It has the largest coal reserves in Latin America, and is second to Brazil in hydroelectric potential. Estimates of petroleum reserves in 1995 were 3.1 billion barrels (490,000,000 m3). Colombia also possesses significant amounts of nickel and gold. Other important metals included platinum and silver, which were extracted in much smaller quantities. Colombia also produces copper, small amounts of iron ore, and bauxite. Nonmetallic mined minerals include salt, limestone, sulfur, gypsum, dolomite, barite, feldspar, clay, magnetite, mica, talcum, and marble. Colombia also produces most of the world's emeralds. Despite the variety of minerals available for exploitation, Colombia still had to import substances such as iron, copper, and aluminum to meet its industrial needs.
The Crown of Our Lady of the Assumption of Popayán, known as the Crown of the Andes, is a votive crown originally made for a larger-than-life sized statue of the Virgin Mary in the cathedral of Popayán, Colombia. The oldest parts of the crown are the orb and cross at the top, which date to the 16th century. The diadem was made around 1660, and the arches were added around 1770. The crown is adorned with 450 emeralds, the largest of which is the "Atahualpa Emerald"; this might have belonged to Incan Emperor Atahualpa (1497–1533) and been seized from him when he was captured in 1532 by Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish conquistador. In 1936, the crown was sold by its owners to an American businessman and it has remained in the United States ever since. As of December 2015, the crown belongs to the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The Paja Formation is an Early Cretaceous geologic formation of central Colombia. The formation extends across the northern part of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, the Western Colombian emerald belt and surrounding areas of the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. In the subsurface, the formation is found in the Middle Magdalena Valley to the west. The Paja Formation stretches across four departments, from north to south the southernmost Bolívar Department, in Santander, Boyacá and the northern part of Cundinamarca. Well known fossiliferous outcrops of the formation occur near Villa de Leyva, also written as Villa de Leiva, and neighboring Sáchica.
Emeralds are green and sometime green with a blueish-tint precious gemstones that are mined in various geological settings. They are minerals in the beryl group of silicates. For more than 4,000 years, emeralds have been among the most valuable of all jewels. Colombia, located in northern South America, is the country that mines and produces the most emeralds for the global market, as well as the most desirable. It is estimated that Colombia accounts for 70–90% of the world's emerald market. While commercial grade emeralds are quite plentiful, fine and extra fine quality emeralds are extremely rare. Colombian emeralds over 50 carat can cost much more than diamonds of the same size.
La Colosa is a porphyry gold mine in Colombia. The mine is located in Cajamarca, Tolima on the eastern flanks of the Central Ranges of the Colombian Andes. La Colosa has estimated inferred resources of 24,000,000 ounces (680 t) of gold, grading at 0.9 to 1.0 milligram per kilogram of Au. In 2015, the mine produced 1,810.35 grams (63.858 oz) of gold. In 2016, 88.4% of the mining value in Colombia came from coal and gold combined, with nickel following at 9.3%.
The Muisca Confederation was a loose confederation of different Muisca rulers in the central Andean highlands of what is today Colombia before the Spanish conquest of northern South America. The area, presently called Altiplano Cundiboyacense, comprised the current departments of Boyacá, Cundinamarca and minor parts of Santander.
Jorge Augusto Gamboa Mendoza is a Colombian anthropologist and historian. He has been contributing on the knowledge of hispanic and pre-hispanic territories of what is now Colombia, especially the Muisca. Jorge Gamboa speaks Spanish and French.
The Muzo people are a Cariban-speaking indigenous group who inhabited the western slopes of the eastern Colombian Andes. They were a highly war-like tribe who frequently clashed with their neighbouring indigenous groups, especially the Muisca.
This article describes the economy of the Muisca. The Muisca were the original inhabitants of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, the high plateau in the Eastern Ranges of central present-day Colombia. Their rich economy and advanced merchant abilities were widely known by the indigenous groups of the area and described by the Spanish conquistadores whose primary objective was the acquisition of the mineral resources of Tierra Firme; gold, emeralds, carbon, silver and copper.
Luis Lanchero, also known as Luis Lancheros was a Spanish conquistador and the founder of the town of Trinidad de los Muzos, Boyacá, the most important emerald settlement in Colombia. Muzo was founded after twenty years of unsuccessful attempts to subjugate the Muzo to Spanish rule. Lanchero arrived in the New World in 1533 and died impoverished in Tunja in 1562.
The Las Pavas, also called La Pava, is a Colombian emerald mining area that is neighboring Colombia's largest emerald mine, Puerto Arturo. It is located 200 kilometres (120 mi) northwest of the capital Bogotá in the western emerald belt of Muzo, and about 235 kilometres (146 mi) west of Chivor, which is in the eastern emerald belt. The mining area spans the municipalities Quípama and Muzo.
La Pita is an emerald mine located in the western belt of the Colombian emerald mining area. It is owned and operated by the Colombian company, Zuliana De Esmeraldas Ltda.
Furatena Airport is an airport serving the emerald region of the western emerald belt and town of Quípama in the Boyacá Department of Colombia. The airport is four nautical miles west of Muzo Airport.
The Valenciana Mine, known as Mina de La Valenciana in Spanish, is located in Guanajuato, Mexico. Valenciana is about 6 km from the Historic Center, Guanajuato, Guanajuato. La Valenciana Mine, Historic Guanajuato City, and surrounding mines are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It began to exploit silver in the 16th century. Its extraction of silver was so abundant that its production was equivalent to two-thirds of the total that was obtained from this metal in all of New Spain. Currently, it belongs to the Santa Fe Cooperative Society of Metallurgical Mines of Guanajuato and continues to be exploited at a depth of 760 meters.
The Llanos Basin or Eastern Llanos Basin is a major sedimentary basin of 96,000 square kilometres (37,000 sq mi) in northeastern Colombia. The onshore foreland on Mesozoic rift basin covers the departments of Arauca, Casanare and Meta and parts of eastern Boyacá and Cundinamarca, western Guainía, northern Guaviare and southeasternmost Norte de Santander. The northern boundary is formed by the border with Venezuela, where the basin grades into the Barinas-Apure Basin.
Enciso Moreno, Francy Paola. 2011. Cartografía geológica y caracterización litológica del prospecto de oro Surbia, municipio de Quinchía (Risaralda), 1–99. Universidad Industrial de Santander.
Nickel
Forero Castañeda, Jorge Fernando; Jorge Hernán Londoño De Los Ríos; Juan José Manrique Galvis, and Fredy Wilman Rojas Cruz. 2009. El Níckel en Colombia, 1–45. UPME. Accessed 2017-06-08.
Uribe, Sylvano E. 1960. Las esmeraldas de Colombia. Boletín de la Sociedad Geográfica de Colombia XVIII. 1–8. Accessed 2016-07-08.
Coal
Cely Sierra, Edy Santiago. 2016. Caracterización geológica y fisicoquímica de los carbones explotados por la empresa Intercarbon Mining S.A.S., 1–104. UPTC.
Velandia Tarazona, Jenny Esmeralda; María Esther Rivera; Jesús Ramón Delgado Rodríguez, and Jorge Marco Monroy Gallo. 2016. Geology, litostratigraphy, determination of the quality and classification of carbones of Espino-Boyacá, Colombia. Boletín Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad Nacional de Colombia 40. 16–23. .
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