CAMAGÜEY.- Alfonso Chang Rodríguez from Camagüey won the 2020 Technological Innovation Award, awarded by presidential decree at the proposal of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, for his mining research on the San Felipe plateau.

The San Felipe plateau, located 27 kilometers northwest of the city of Camagüey, marks a special moment in the life of Alfonso Chang Rodríguez, not only because of the fifteen years he settled in that inhospitable place, but also because of what he came to discover in the insatiable thirst to investigate the secrets of the nickel mineral that distinguishes that portion of the Cuban geography.

As described, San Felipe is an atypical deposit in Cuba and worldwide, with silacated ores, associated with a group of minerals that contains silicon dioxide in its crystallogenic form, different from the regions of Moa and Nicaro, where nickel is contained in oxidized minerals; from there the red earths, while here that natural resource assumes a green color when it is extracted, it is associated with clay minerals in which nickel is included.

Unraveling these particularities translated the geological investigation into a different result for the design of a mine, since being made of clay, the banks where they sit have to be different as well as the slopes so that they do not collapse and the exploitation technologies, question that occurs from the geological point of view.

“San Felipe, despite being an atypical deposit, has some analogies worldwide, with the Murrín-Murrín, in Australia, which is not completely the same, but very similar, and some clay silacate ores in Geosol Isabal, in the Republic of Guatemala ”, a site where Chang had the opportunity to collaborate for two years.

The experience gathered in this place in the north of Camagüey and the apprehension of knowledge, throughout his student career at the Máximo Gómez Báez vocational pre-university institute of exact sciences and then upon graduating as a geologist in Ukraine, in the former Soviet Union, served as the basis for a comprehensive compendium for doctoral training.

The genesis of this scientific degree is supported by: Methodology for the identification and crystallochemical characterization of the nickel mining phases present in the saprolytic interperism crusts, the result of the study carried out in San Felipe.

Chang's claim in applying knowledge as a science has been to contribute to the economic and social progress of the country, with creative and sustainable contributions, without thinking of any recognition. However, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, estimated that he deserved the 2020 Technological Innovation Award, granted by presidential decree and recently appeared in the Extraordinary Official Gazette of 2021.

“The award really surprised me, it is very difficult to obtain it, although apparently not impossible. It is a high honor and a moral commitment. I consider that it is the maximum in the investigative field ”, he underlined to later recognize the expressions of affection received from colleagues at the University of Camagüey Ignacio Agramonte, where he is a tenured professor, parallel to his performance as main specialist in geology of the Empresa Geominera Camagüey.

The novelty of the research is that it makes a detailed description of the strategy to be used during the selection, documentation, sampling and analysis, both mineralogical and chemical, physical and of all the aspects that are made to all these clay weathering profiles in Cuba.

It does not end there, it exposes a methodology for laboratory work, materials and methods for processing the results and the information collected.

The strategy, said Chang, combines physical techniques and methods, granulometric analysis, volumetric weights, chemicals, among many others, such as the application of the electronic microprobe, favored by the help of the Spanish University of Barcelona.

In the conversation, it could not lack the mention of the co-authors and the contribution of other higher education centers in the country, of the scientific and practical knowledge acquired during more than twenty-eight years of studies in different fields in search of more efficient management, avoid unnecessary drilling, more rational as required by the country.

Bearer of the Carlos J. Finlay Order, awarded by the Council of State, the interviewee believes that along with other decorations, this award enriches him spiritually to continue contributing to society.

San Felipe is a promising place for economic development for the future, with its more than 306 million tons of nickel and as a man of dreams, Chang does not rule out seeing his grandchildren - who are about to be born - walking around these places.