El Chanate

El Chanate is a former gold mine in Sonora, Mexico owned by Alamos Gold.[1][2]

El Chanate
Location
El Chanate is located in Mexico
El Chanate
El Chanate
El Chanate is located in Sonora
El Chanate
El Chanate
LocationAltar Municipality
StateSonora
CountryMexico
Coordinates30°47′47″N 111°55′15″W
Production
ProductsGold
TypeOpen-pit
History
DiscoveredEarly 19th-century
Owner
CompanyAlamos Gold
Local impacts
PollutionCyanide
ImpactedLocal soil contamination

Artisanal mining started in the early 19th-century and continued until 2018, at which point operations reduced to leaching.

Description

El Chanate is an open-pit gold mine located in the Altar Municipality of Sonora,[3] close to the Mexico–United States border,[4] in the northwest of Sonora, Mexico that is owned by Canadian corporation Alamos Gold.[4] The mine covers 4,618 hectares and is located around a fault, above sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Twenty-seven million tonnes of gold ore was estimated to be on site in 2014, grading 0.74g/t of gold.[2]

History

The mine was worked by artisan miners since the early 19th-century.[2] Denver-based Chanate Gold Mines Co. was registered in 1898.[5]

In the 2007, Capital Gold Corp's subsidiary Minera Santa Rita, started working the mine.[6]

In 2015, a merger between AuRico Gold and Alamos Gold, transferred the mine's ownership to the later company.[7]

In 2016, the mine's operators spilled 10,000 litres of cyanide solution, some was captured in ponds and some contained local soil, before being relocated into a lined leach pad.[4][8]

Mining stopped in late 2018, when operations switched to residual leaching.[9] As of 2023, the mine's owners had stopped listed it as a producing mine.[10]

See also

References

  1. EJOLT. "Alamos gold mining company in the "Sonora cluster", Mexico | EJAtlas". Environmental Justice Atlas. Archived from the original on 2023-04-17. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
  2. Barradas, Sheila (18 March 2016). "El Chanate mine, Mexico". Mining Weekly. Archived from the original on 2016-03-25. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
  3. "AuRico Gold Inc.: Exhibit 99.1 - Filed by newsfilecorp.com". www.sec.gov. Archived from the original on 2016-05-25. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
  4. Martinez-Alier, Joan (30 Aug 2019). "Canadian corporate cruelty in Mexico and Turkey". The Ecologist. Archived from the original on 2023-04-25. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
  5. Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of Colorado. (1898). United States: p.76
  6. United States Geological Survey Minerals Yearbook Area Reports: International 2007: Latin America and Canada, Volume III, p14.5
  7. "Alamos Gold 2015 Sustainability Report" (PDF).
  8. "BNamericas - Alamos confirms cyanide spill at Mexico mine". BNamericas.com. 4 May 2016. Archived from the original on 2022-09-27. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
  9. Peter Kennedy, Exploration and Mining in Mexico, Resource World Magazine Volume 17 Issue 3. Resource World Magazine Inc. p7
  10. "Alamos Gold - Operations & Development Projects". Alamos Gold. Archived from the original on 2023-03-31. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
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