AuRico Gold’s El Chanate Mine located 37 km northeast of Caborca in Sonora, Mexico. The mine consists of an open pit mine, crusher, heap leach pads, and mineral processing plant, and located on 3665 hectares includes within 19 mineral concessions. Since the acquisition of El Chanate in April 2011, has made a very solid performance in mining.
The El Chanate Mine is an open pit heap leach gold operation in Sonora, Mexico. The mine has been and continues to be a consistent and reliable gold producer. In 2014, El Chanate again delivered another year of solid operating performance and cash cost estimates expected within the production. The 2014 exploration program focused on three mineralization targets along the Chanate with an aim to raise funds and possibly extend life out mine.
History for the area is mined gold since the early 19th century. The current open pit mine is developed below the level of with little scale mining. The open pit mine in El Chanate Mexico plan covers an area of approximately 1700 meters Far, 845 meters wide and 300 meters deep
Geology In Chanate
Key structural feature El Chanate is the Chanate fault zone, a 7 km far northwest-striking, variable southwest dipping structure. The area is underlain by deformed sedimentary rocks of the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous Bisbee Group and the Late Cretaceous Chanate Group, which are overlain by locally Andesites Chalk El Charro volcanic complex.
The sedimentary layers are locally
intruded by andesitic sills and dykes, a microporphyritic latite and
diorite stock. These layers consist of mudstone, siltstone, sandstone,
conglomerate, shale, and limestone.
Sandstone, conglomerate, and to a lesser mudstone which are above mistake Chanate of the Middle Cretaceous Chanate Group. Under the mistake, siltstone and sandstone lenses assigned the Arroyo Sasabe Formation of Lower Cretaceous Bisbee Group
Mineralization Chanate Mine
Alteration and mineralization associated
with Chanate fault zone exposed over a northwest Slam length of over
3.5 km. The rock units in this zone be changed to varying degrees by
sericite, pyrite, ankerite and quartz veins.
In surface outcrops of the mineralized
zone is characterized by its bleached appearance versus unmineralized
rock. Sub-parallel zones of sheeted quartz veins forming thick
mineralized lenses within a larger area of sub-economic but anomalous
gold concentrations.
Drill Gap data indicate the mineralized
lenses dip sub-horizontal careful Southwest and often parallel to the
Chanate error and the steep normal faults. The Chanate fault zone itself
is generally weakly mineralized, while the rock units in the adjoining
hanging and foot walls are well mineralized.
Mining And Processing Chanate In Mine
Conventional open pit mining methods used at El Chanate. Ore is trucked from the open pit to the three-stage crushing circuit, after which crushed ore and lower grade run of mine ore is placed on the heap leach pad where it is irrigated with an alkaline cyanide bearing solution. This is used to extract, dissolving or the gold and silver present in the ore. The resulting “pregnant” solution is further processed in an plant, followed by electrowinning and refining.
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