The Fruta del Norte deposit is the largest gold deposit in Ecuador.[1] 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.[2][3] Following changes to Ecuadorian mining laws that limited foreign ownership of mining projects, the Canadian company Kinross Gold acquired Aurelian Resources in 2009 and took on the project.[3] 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.[4][5][6] 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. [7][8]
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.[9]
