Pan-American quantitative mineral resource assessment of copper, molybdenum, gold, and silver in undiscovered porphyry copper deposits in the Andes mountains, South America

Abstract

Working together, the geological surveys of Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and the United States used the U. S. Geological Survey three-part mineral resource assessment methodology (Singer, 1993) to delineate the regional locations and make probabilistic estimates of the amounts of copper, molybdenum, silver, and gold in undiscovered porphyry copper deposits in the Andes. Quantitative information on the probable locations and amounts of undiscovered mineral resources of the world is important to exploration managers, land-use and environmental planners, economists, and policy makers.