Salar del Hombre Muerto, Argentinai

Regional Level Types
Salar del Hombre Muerto	Saline Lake
Argentina	Country

A salt pan covers parts of both Salta and Catamarca provinces. Consists of east and west basins with different mineralogy (east is borate-rich, while the west is halite-rich). ~ 588 km², in part covered by debris (eastern part).
It is part of the Lithium Triangle of salars and one of the world's most important sources of lithium. Lithium extraction began in 1996 or 1997. (Wikipedia)

Coordinates:
Latitude: 25º 25´ 10.30" South.
Longitude: 67º 04´ 01.89" West.
Elevation: 3973 meters over sea level.

In 2021 Galaxy mining held mineral rights over 26,253 hectares
Halite:
Salt Lakes of Puna: in Catamarca-Salta, occurs in significant volumes in the "Salar del Hombre Muerto". The contemporary development of volcanism along with the formation of evaporitics during the Quaternary deposits, found a massive transfer of ions to basins, with precipitation of important volumes of various salts. Therefore, the halite is accompanied by agreement the salar, carbonate of calcium, sodium-lithium brine(also contains K, Cs and Rb, like as chlorides), ulexite, gypsum, anhydrite, thenardite, mirabilite/glauberite or tincal.

Microlite:
"Salar del Hombre Muerto", Catamarca and Salta. In the area there are metamorphic rocks crossed by pegmatites and dykes of quartz; alongside these last few notes a system of thin veins (up to 2 cm of power), irregular distribution, sometimes anastomosed with small cores of hematite and associated with the Ta mineral columbite-tantalite. This mineral was studied, with electronic microprobe, and although it was described as uraniferous pyrochlore, by its composition corresponds to uraniferous microlite. Ilmenite and rutile are also observed. Electron microprobe data, R. Girau analysts and P. Picot, B.R.G.M. laboratory, Orleans, France.
Chemical analysis of four samples:
UO2: 10.34% - 9.15% - 1.66% - 3.98%.
Nb2O5: 3.49% - 3.80% - 2.15% - 3.94%.
Ta2O5: 67.79% - 69.52% - 76.60% - 74.19%.
FeO: 0.35% - 0.19% - 0.05% - .....
MnO: 0.15% - 0.11% - ..... - .....
CaO: 6.92% - 7.45% - 9.69% - 9.27%.
Na2O: 6.03% - 6.19% - 8.05% - 6.44%.
H2O: 95.07% - 96.41% - 98.20% - 97.82%.

Obsidian:
Sources of obsidian in the area are small domes and lava domes associated with stratum and largely composed of lavas of dacite and rhyolite volcanoes. This obsidian is usually associated with eruptive phases containing rhyolites with pyroclastic ash and lapilli, Plinian and obsidianic lava eruptions.
There are more than fourteen bodies of Obsidian in the Argentine Northwest: positively identified sources, three are in the province of Salta (Chirón, Ramadas, Alto Tocomar), six in Catamarca (Ona - Las Cuevas, Valle Ancho, Cueros de Purulla, Chascón, Laguna Cavi and Salar del Hombre Muerto), one at the boundary of these two provinces (Archibarca) and another on the border between Jujuy, Bolivia and Chile (Zapaleri and Caldera Vilama 1 and 2).
It is worth noting that for the time being, the source of Archibarca is only known from a few nodules of this raw that appeared near this volcano, on the border between the province of Catamarca and Salta.
Also, the source of the Salar del Hombre Muerto is also known from the presence of concentrations of nodules of this rock in the vicinity of the Salt Lake.
Chemistry: a sample was analyzed by X-ray fluorescence:
SiO2: 73.7%
Al2O3: 13.9%
Fe2O3: 1.2%
TiO2: 0.24%
CaO: 0.89%
MgO: 0.27%
Na2O: 4.91%
K2O: 4.03%
Loss to red: 0.53%

Fossils

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Localities in this Region

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References