The rescue of the historical mining heritage began with the restoration of a topographical plan from 1860 of the Brillador mine, which would confirm the existence and use of steam engines inside the mine.

With the objective of rescuing the mining heritage of the Coquimbo Region, the Faculty of Engineering of the University of La Serena, through the Geology Area of ​​the Department of Mining Engineering, began the process of restoring the plan that served to project the Carlos Lambert's work at the Brillador mine. The plan has more than 150 years of history and is intended to be preserved for future generations.

The Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Dr. Engineer Mauricio Godoy, in relation to the restoration process, indicated that “we must take care and protect our heritage, this is a very important milestone since it is one of the first engineering plans in Chile, and is associated with mining, forming part of one of the greatest collected treasures that our University has.”

Thiare Ceballos, Coordinator(s) of the Geology Area, commented that “the idea of ​​geoheritage is to maintain the scientific wealth of geology within the community and everything that this involves, because it is part of the history and of our region. Following this line, we wanted to preserve our heritage with the first mining cartography in our country,” she concluded.

For his part, Frank Vicencio, professor of History and researcher, stressed that “the oldest mines began to use steam engines around 1860, while the Brillador mine, according to my hypothesis, was very modern for the time since "It began to use this type of equipment, long before other mining companies."

To carry out the restoration process, we have the support of Javier Gómez, professional conservator and restorer of the Archaeological Museum of La Serena, who is currently evaluating the conditions in which this plane is located, pointing out that “we are trying to intervene as little as possible. since it is a historical object and we are seeing what condition the plan is in and what conservation actions to carry out. We are taking photographs to carry out digital tests, the map has an enormous amount of information that even in the future we could separate the samples and make a complete exhibition.”

Written by María José Barraza, FIULS 2030 Project