在智利和阿根廷境内的安第斯山脉中段,赋存有15个大型斑岩铜矿床和至少50个矿化地区,是世界上首屈一指的铜矿带,占已知世界铜矿储量的30%.英国皇家矿山学院著名斑岩铜矿专家R.H.西利托博士,对智利-阿根廷的斑岩铜矿又做了大量的区域研究,提出了一些过去未发表过的新资料.他认为: 该铜矿带为内硅铝带,北部下伏有前寒武系基底.大部分矿床与中性和钙碱性岩株有关,这些岩株有的是孤立存在的,有的则产在同源岩浆的顶部带内.该带的大多数矿体均分布在南纬16°到南纬39°的五个纵向线性亚带内.每个亚带都有一个明确的时间范围,五个亚带的时代分别为:早石炭纪一晚二迭纪、晚白垩纪、古新世、上始新世一下渐新世及中-上中新世;但严格地讲,每个带内的矿床并非是同时代的,例如,古新世亚带内,北部矿床的年龄为59～54百万年,而南部矿床的年龄为65～61百万年.已知大型斑岩铜矿主要产在2个亚带内,即上始新世一下 In the mid-Andean range of Chile and Argentina, there are 15 large porphyry copper deposits and at least 50 mineralized areas, making it the world’s leading copper belt accounting for 30% of the world’s known copper deposits. Dr RH Xilitito, a famous porphyry copper mine expert at the Royal Institute of Mines, did a great deal of regional research on the porphyry copper deposits in Chile and Argentina and put forward some new and unpublished data in the past. Within the silicon-aluminum belt, there are Precambrian basements to the north, most of which are related to neutral and calc-alkaline rock strata, some of which exist in isolation, while others occur within the top belt of the same-source magma. Most of the ore bodies of the belt are distributed in five vertical linear sub-zones from latitude 16 ° south to latitude 39 ° .Each subzone has a definite time frame, and the ages of the five sub-belts are as follows: Carboniferous one late Permian, Late Cretaceous, Paleocene, the Eocene about the Eocene and the Mid-Miocene; but strictly speaking, each belt within the deposit is not the same period, for example In the Paleocene sub-belt, the age of the northern deposits is 59-54 million years, while the age of the southern deposits is 65-61 Years. It is known that large-scale porphyry copper deposits are mainly produced in two sub-belts, namely, the Eocene