The Fruta del Norte deposit is the largest
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
deposit in
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...
. The deposit is part of the Corriente Copper Belt located in the Amazon province of
Zamora-Chinchipe.
In 2006 Aurelian Resources discovered a large deposit at Fruta del Norte, estimated between 6.8 and 10 million ounces of gold and between 9.1 and 14 million ounces of silver.
Following changes to Ecuadorian mining laws that limited foreign ownership of mining projects, the Canadian company
Kinross Gold Kinross Gold Corporation is a Canadian-based gold mining, gold and silver mining company founded in 1993 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Kinross currently operates six active gold mines, and was ranked fifth of the "10 Top Gold-mining ...
acquired Aurelian Resources in 2009 and took on the project.
Despite the project's potential, and just days before Congress passed a new mining law in 2013, Kinross pulled out of Ecuador after a dispute over
windfall taxes, reporting a loss of $720 million.
In 2014 Kinross sold its entire interest in the project to Fortress Minerals Corporation. The company was renamed Lundin Gold and the Fruta del Norte deposit went into production in 2019.
Discovery
The deposit was discovered by a combination of a conceptual exploration model that predicted mineralization might occur buried in a pull-apart basin (Aurelian Exploration Manager Steve Leary) and the observation that some silicification of these basin sediments had occurred at Fruta del Norte by geologist Julio Soto.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fruta del Norte Mine
Gold mines in Ecuador