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Mining
The beginnings of mining in Chile go back to the extractions made between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, in an iron oxide mine in Taltal (mine SR15), the oldest in the continent. Centuries later, the successive exploitation of coal in the south, silver in Chañarcillo and saltpeter in the north led to mining to play a major role in the Chilean economy. Mining is present in 13 of the 15 regions of the country and extracts 25 different products. It is the main economic activity in the regions of Tarapacá, Antofagasta and Atacama, and it is of great importance in those of Coquimbo, Valparaíso and O'Higgins. In Magallanes, the exploitation of petroleum is of great importance for domestic supply.

The main commercial product is copper, popularly known as «Chile's salary». The country is the largest producer in the world, satisfying 36% of the world market and it has 28% of the world's copper reserves. The copper extraction represents 30% of Chilean exports (and covered more than 60% of them in 1970). The state company Codelco, the largest copper company on the planet, exploits some of the main Chilean deposits, as Chuquicamata and El Teniente, the largest open pit and underground mines in the world respectively.

The exploitation of other resources such as iron, molybdenum, nitrate, gold and silver it is also important. In addition, Chile has 21.9% of lithium reserves, and in 2012, 37% of the world production of this mineral was concentrated in the country.

Science and technology


According to the number of scientific publications, Chile ranked fourth in Latin America and the thirty-eighth in the world in 2011. In 2014, the country had the highest rate of scientific patents in South America: 13.52 per million inhabitants.

Chile maintains twelve scientific research stations —four permanent bases, operational throughout the year, and eight temporary bases, operational in summer— and seven shelters in Antarctica. In the Atacama desert there are more than a dozen observatories —like Paranal (VLT), the most advanced and powerful astronomical complex on the planet, ALMA, the largest astronomical project in the world, and La Silla, among others—. Chile holds 40% of the world's astronomical observation, however, in the 2020s, the sector will develop other projects —like the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), and the expansion of ALMA— that will make the north of the country concentrate nearly 70%.

In biotechnology, biochemist Pablo Valenzuela stands out, who participated in the creation of the vaccine against the Hepatitis B virus, the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus, and the development of a process to produce human insulin from yeast. In addition, under his direction, scientists cloned and sequenced the AIDS virus.

Since the 1990s, Chile has had artificial satellites: the FASat-Alfa (1995), the FASat-Bravo (1998) and the SSOT (2011).

Chilean mining has generated technological innovation and contributions to the sector worldwide. State copper company Codelco has patented metallurgical and chemical processes, like the "convertidor modificado Teniente" (CMT, that allows to obtain copper with a lower cost of oil) and the robotized mining pilot of the Gaby mine, which uses machinery handled automatically by means of softwares and georeferencing. Also, Chile's high seismicity has fostered the development and application of anti-seismic technology in the larger works, as the damping between floors of skyscrapers using energy absorption and special beams.