The Veladero mine is a
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 ...
mine in
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
.
The mine is located in the north-western part of
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
in
San Juan Province.
The mine has estimated reserves of 10 million oz of
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 ...
.
It is operated by
Barrick Gold
Barrick Gold Corporation is a mining company that produces gold and copper with 16 operating sites in 13 countries. It is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It has mining operations in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Democrati ...
.The mine uses heap leach to extract gold and silver, which is a process that uses cyanide to dissolve the gold and mercury to extract it from the cyanide slurry. This mine has had at least 5 catastrophic spills i tor eh environment contaminating 5 rivers.
![Veladero 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Veladero_01.png)
In 2007, Barrick Gold installed the world's highest-altitude wind turbine at the Veladero mine at nearly 4,200m elevation.
References
Gold mines in Argentina
Mines in San Juan Province, Argentina
Barrick Gold
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