The All Important Winds and Currents – Part IV

In the previous three posts, we have discussed the winds and currents that flow around the globe, and especially between the Arabian peninsula and the Western Hemisphere. These are the very winds that blew Nephi’s ship toward the Land of Promise and shows us where he made landfall—the only place along that west coast of the Americas where these winds would have blown his ship “before the wind” and where he could have affected a landing without the winds and currents blowing him back out to sea.

In previous posts we have discussed on numerous occasions both these winds, currents, and the North Pacific and South Pacific gyres as well as the winds blowing from the east through Indonesia and westward into the Indian Ocean, precluding any deep sea vessel sailing in that direction from the south coast of Arabia. For further information on these winds and currents, see the book “Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica.”

The last post concluded with an image of the Bay of Coquimbo along the Chilean coast around the 30º South Latitude, where the winds and currents die down to amost non existent movement across this Tropic of Capricorn, before picking up to the north and bending out into the Pacific Ocean once again. A ship as Nephi describes building, capable of sailing across the “Great Deep” would not have been able to maintain a coastal cruise beyond the northern Peru area because of the Peruvian Bulge which sends the currents back out into the Pacific. And north of the Bay of Guayaquil, the winds and currents move from the Central American area southward, blocking sailing northward along the Ecuador and Columbian coast in such a vessel.

Consequently, the only landing site such a ship could have affected would have been where the currents and winds allowed on, and that is around the Bay of Coquimbo in Chile.

Adjacent to the Coquimbo-La Serena area and sitting along the 30º South Latitudinal line, is the Carmen del Andacollo Gold and Copper Mine, with its 55,000 ton-per-day concentrator—a major producer of copper and gold in Chile. Within just a short distance east and north of La Serena, are 17 separate gold/silver and copper mines, plus two major finds of gold and copper fields not yet mined.

North of this belt is the Chuquicamata (Chugui) open pit copper mine—the second deepest open-pit mine in the world after Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah. For nearly 90 years it had the largest annual production of copper in the world, producing about 29 million tons of copper per year, and is still considered one of the largest known copper resources in the world. Recently, the Escondida Copper Mine has out produced the Chugui, which is located a little further north in northern Chile, which is now the largest producing copper mine in the world. In addition, this complex has two major gold-producing mines (Zaldivar and Escondida Norte), operated by Barrick Gold Corp, the largest pure gold mining company in the world. Silver is also minded at Escondida.

In fact, Chile and Peru are the two largest producers of copper in the world. They are also extremely large producers of gold, silver and zinc. While Chile is the largest producer of copper in the world, Peru is the largest producer of silver, second largest producer of copper and of zinc, and the fifth largest producer of gold. In fact, it is almost impossible to find any mining information in the Andean area that does not link copper, gold and silver in the same sentence.

As Nephi wrote: “And we did find all manner of ore, both of gold, and of silver, and of copper” (1 Nephi 18:25).

It should be noted, that just in the ore alone, the Andean area of northern Chile and Peru, are world leaders in copper, gold and silver—no other western hemisphere area can make such a boast—not the U.S., Baja California, Mexico, Guatemala, or Central America. Nor are such metals found in Malaysia. Nor in any other area where so many theorists want to place the Land of Promise. Yet, Nephi and Mormon write much about the precious metals found in the promised land. One might think they were there in great abundance.

Just another scriptural point that matches the Andean area of South America—which, at one ancient time, was an island.