Lo Aguirre is a medium-sized copper mine located west of Santiago in central Chile. The copper deposit is of stratabound type and formed during a time of extensional tectonics in what is now the Chilean Coast Range in the Jurassic and Cretaceous. The mile lies at elevation between 500 and 700 m a.s.l. In the late 1980s Lo Aguirre became a commercial solvent-extraction-based operation using bioleaching. It became Chile's first mine to achieve this despite a previous attempt at Chuquicamata in the early 1970s. The mine begun operations in November 1980 and closed in 2000 but the procedures associated to the closure lasted until 2016. The mine was known for being the mine that was closest to Chile's capital Santiago.