Sulphate efflorescences at the geyser near Pinchollo,southern Peru

Sulphate mineralization precipitated around a geyser located above the village of Pinchollo, Chivay district and below Hualca Hualca volcano (6025 m a.s.l.) in the Western Cordillera of southern Peru is described. The geyser is one of many manifestations of thermal activity in the Arequipa department. Its age is estimated to be Upper Pleistocene–Holocene, as the discharge point lies at the intersection of a fault system with latitudinal dip-slip fault cutting a volcanic-debris avalanche of probably Pleistocene age. Thermal waters present in the Chivay district are mainly chloride-rich with a neutral pH. They are rich in Li, Sr, and B. The water erupting in the geyser boils at about 85 °C, as it lies at some 4353 m a.s.l.The minerals examined, of various habits and various yellow, orange and white colours were precipitated on the soil and on plants close to the geyser (location 1), on the walls of a 1 m diameter pothole filled with boiling water (location 1a) and at a distance of some 100 m to the west of the geyser (location 2). All are sulphates. Their chemical composition is fairly simple, consisting of Al, Fe, K, Mg, Ca, S, NH₄ and O, and all display chemical zoning. But the phase composition is more complex. In all locations, alunogene, copiapite, coquimbite, tschermigite and gypsum are present. Close to the geyser (location 1) magnesium-containing sulphates, namely, boussingaultite and pickeringite also occur. Iron sulphates such as mohrite and rozenite precipitate on the walls of the pothole (location 1a). Sulphates containing potassium such as jarosite, alunite and voltaite–voltaite (Mg) dominate among the efflorescences in location 2, where hematite was also noted. Any quartz and kaolinite or illite/mica admixture identified in some samples derives from adjacent soil.The present geothermal system does not involve the deposition of precious-metal deposits such as those associated with an earlier deep-going epithermal system that scavenged a large volume of rock. Most likely, as the present-day thermal waters do not involve a juvenile-water component, the geyser waters derive from a shallower source.