Agile Geoscience at Fruta del Norte: targeting blind gold for resource modellers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on International Mining – News
30 Second Briefing
Agile geoscience workflows are being used by Lundin Gold at the Fruta del Norte underground mine in Ecuador’s Cordillera del Cóndor to target extensions of a blind, high-grade gold system concealed beneath more than 200 m of cover. Integrated 3D modelling, rapid iteration of structural interpretations and near-real-time incorporation of new drillhole data are guiding step-out drilling across the wider land package. For geologists and resource modellers, the approach tightens feedback between drilling, geology and targeting, improving confidence in subsurface geometry in a complex, concealed ore system.
Technical Brief
- Fruta del Norte is operated as an underground mine, not open pit, constraining drill access geometry.
- Lundin Gold controls a contiguous, “large and highly prospective” land package around the current mine footprint.
- The orebody is described as one of the world’s highest‑grade operating gold systems, driving tight drilling spacing.
- Blind nature of the system demands reliance on indirect geophysical, structural and geochemical vectors rather than outcrop mapping.
- Underground mine status allows some step‑out drilling from existing workings, reducing surface disturbance and access preparation.
- For similar concealed systems, agile geoscience reduces the lag between drilling spend and model updates, sharpening capital allocation.
Our Take
Fruta del Norte stands out in our gold project coverage as one of the few 100%-owned tier-one assets in Ecuador, which typically gives Lundin Gold more freedom to trial third‑party technologies like Agile Geoscience’s tools without complex JV approvals.
The >200 m cover at Fruta del Norte puts it in the same exploration challenge bracket as several deep, blind gold systems in our database, where operators increasingly rely on advanced geophysical inversion and data-integration workflows rather than traditional mapping to extend resources.
Within our 353 gold‑tagged pieces, most Latin American stories focus on Peru, Chile and Brazil, so a southeastern Ecuador project in the Cordillera del Cóndor signals that this belt is becoming a more prominent exploration frontier for concealed gold systems.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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