El Chanate

Last updated
El Chanate
Location
Mexico States blank map.svg
Schlaegel und Eisen nach DIN 21800.svg
El Chanate
Mexico Sonora location map.svg
Schlaegel und Eisen nach DIN 21800.svg
El Chanate
Location Altar Municipality
State Sonora
CountryMexico
Coordinates 30°47′47″N111°55′15″W / 30.79628°N 111.92093°W / 30.79628; -111.92093
Production
ProductsGold
TypeOpen-pit
History
DiscoveredEarly 19th-century
Owner
Company Alamos Gold
Local impacts
Pollution Cyanide
ImpactedLocal soil contamination

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

Contents

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

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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. 1 2 3 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. 1 2 3 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.