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Amalgamation Silver-Refining Technology
Amalgamation was an open-air mercury-mixing silver extraction process invented in 16th-century Spanish America: crushed silver ore, salt, copper salt…
Timeline
- 1554–1556Pachuca mining district · PachucaBartolomé de Medina experimented at the Pachuca mining district in the patio process, using salt, copper sulfate (or magnetite) as catalyst and mercury to extract silver, breaking the previous limit of only processing high-grade native silver ores and providing a technical model for mining low-grade silver sulfide ores in the Americas.
- 1561–1565Zacatecas–Guanajuato silver mining district · New SpainAmalgamation spread rapidly along central Mexico's silver belt to Zacatecas, Guanajuato, and elsewhere; mine owners commonly built paved patios (patios de amalgamación) and hired Indigenous laborers to tread the ore slurry, and Mexican silver output rose markedly in the early 1560s.
- 1566–1570Potosí (Upper Peru) · PotosíThe Viceroyalty of Peru introduced Mexican experience to the Cerro Rico mining district, where amalgamation ran alongside existing mill smelting, making Potosí around the 1570s one of the world's largest silver producers and establishing amalgamation as the pillar technology of colonial American silver mining.
Sources
- A History of Mining and Metallurgy in the Spanish Americas, 1514–1810 — Robert C. West (1997)
- Mercury and Silver Amalgamation in the Spanish Americas — Peter Bakewell (1984)