Top Slicing with Filling of Slices, as Used at the Charcas Unit of the Cia. Minera Asarco, S. A.

MINING operations of the Charcas unit at present are limited to the Tiro General mine at Charcas, in the State of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The Tiro General mine was first operated during the Spanish occupation of Mexico for rich silver ores in an oxidized zone along the outcrop of the principal vein. In depth the ore is a complex sulfide with widely varying proportions of sphalerite, argentiferous galena and chalcopyrite; and until recent years, it was economically impossible to carry on mining otherwise than irregularly in sections of the veins richest in galena and chalcopyrite. The advent of selective flotation brought the orebody as a whole within the field of economic interest, and a flotation mill of 650 metric tons daily capacity was constructed in the year 1925. The mining of partly worked-out sections of the mine, as well as the very heavy ground in most of the stopes opened in virgin ore, presented an unusually difficult problem. This -paper describes the so-called "filled top slice" stoping method finally adopted as the standard system.