Quiruvilca is one of Peru's oldest mines with mineralization first reported in the area in 1789. Mining at a corporate level started in 1907 and more or less until 1930 or so. The Quiruvilca Mine has been in continuous operation since about 1940 until 2018 and was initially, focused on the silver-bearing veins on the property. In 1967, the mill started to treat complex ores producing silver, lead and zinc concentrate. In 1995, Pan American acquired an 80% interest in the Quiruvilca Mine and increased their interest to 99.7% by 1996.

The workings are extensive, spread out over a wide area, in many veins. Currently, grades run at about 150 g/t silver, 4% zinc, 1.5% lead and 0.5% copper. Stoping has taken place in, reportedly, 60 places. Considering the 1,725 tons/per/day that the mine can process, that is a lot of small stopes! The underground working places are accessed by several adits/ramps and one shaft. Ore is moved to surface, primarily, by one long conveyor belt system but also supplemented by rail movement from ore passes plus skip-hoisted ore.

The Quiruvilca deposits are in layered volcanic rocks of the Miocene Calipuy Formation which includes andesite and minor basalt flows. The Calipuy formations have an estimated thickness in excess of 2,000m. Intrusive rocks include andesite stocks and dykes. The ore zones have four distinct zones. Ores in the central part of the district are mesothermal and are dominated by enargite. The mesothermal deposits grade outward to the epithermal deposits. Lewis (1956) described the various zones in some detail. The inner zone is called the Enargite Zone and, in the past, encompassed the major part of the Quiruvilca Mine. Little mining is done in that zone today. Minerals associated with the enargite in this zone are pyrite tennantite, wurtzite, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, orpiment, galena and rare hutcinsonite. The second zone outwards is the Transition Zone which is up to 1,400m wide. Its dominant ore mineral is sphalerite with pyrite and tennatite-tetrahedrite. Other sulphides include chalcopyrite, galena, marcasite, arsenopyrite, covellite and wurtzite. Gangue minerals are mostly massive quartz and occasional rhodochrosite and calcite. The third zone outward is the epithermal Lead-Zinc Zone characterized by sphalerite and galena accompanied by pyrite, chalcopyrite, tetrahedrite-tennantite, marcasite, arsenopyrite and gratonite. Gangue minerals in the lead zinc zone are quartz, dolomite, rhodochrosite and calcite. The outermost zone is the Stibnite zone. In addition to stibnite, the other minerals there are arsenopyrite, pyrite, sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite and arsenic.