El Chanate is a former gold mine in Sonora, Mexico owned by Alamos Gold.[1][2]
| Location | |
|---|---|
  El Chanate  El Chanate | |
| Location | Altar Municipality |
| State | Sonora |
| Country | Mexico |
| Coordinates | 30°47′47″N 111°55′15″W / 30.79628°N 111.92093°W |
| Production | |
| Products | Gold |
| Type | Open-pit |
| History | |
| Discovered | Early 19th-century |
| Owner | |
| Company | Alamos Gold |
| Local impacts | |
| Pollution | Cyanide |
| Impacted | Local soil contamination |
Artisanal mining started in the early 19th-century and continued until 2018, at which point operations reduced to leaching.
Description
editEl 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
editThe 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
editReferences
edit- ^ 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.
- ^ a b c Barradas, Sheila (18 March 2016). "El Chanate mine, Mexico". Mining Weekly. Archived from the original on 2016-03-25. Retrieved 2023-06-13.
- ^ "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.
- ^ a b c 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.
- ^ Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of Colorado. (1898). United States: p.76
- ^ United States Geological Survey Minerals Yearbook Area Reports: International 2007: Latin America and Canada, Volume III, p14.5
- ^ "Alamos Gold 2015 Sustainability Report" (PDF).
- ^ "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.
- ^ Peter Kennedy, Exploration and Mining in Mexico, Resource World Magazine Volume 17 Issue 3. Resource World Magazine Inc. p7
- ^ "Alamos Gold - Operations & Development Projects". Alamos Gold. Archived from the original on 2023-03-31. Retrieved 2023-06-13.