Gold mining in Chile

Gold mine in Andacollo,Coquimbo Region.
Location of the five mines that produces most gold in Chile.

The amount of gold mined in Chile has fluctuated in the 2010–2023 period from a high of 50,852 kg in 2013 to a low of 30,907 kg in 2022. Also in the same period 36% to 72% of the gold produced annually in Chile was a by-product of copper mining. Since 2018 large-scale copper mining has produced more than twice the amount of the gold produced by large-scale primary-gold mining. In the 2000s and 2010s the number of gold miners and people employed in the gold mining industry have diminished, making it the mining sector of Chile with most employment vulnerability.

Most of the economically viable gold deposits in Chile belong to two types of deposits; high-sulfidation epithermal and porphyry type. The bulk of these deposits formed in the last 66 millions years (Cenozoic) in connection to magmatic activity in the Andes. Gold from iron oxide copper gold ore deposits (IOCG), from mesothermal deposits, or of Mesozoic age (formed 66 to 252 million years ago) may in some cases be recurrent geological features but lack often large concentrations to make them profitable. Almost all valuable non-placer gold in Chile occur in the northern half of the country and some deposits are grouped into belts like the Maricunga Gold Belt and El Indio Gold Belt. Some challenges of gold mining in Chile include increasingly complex legal frameworks and the fact that important deposits lie below or next to glaciers along the Argentina–Chile border and have thus both issues relating to the bi-nationality and of environmental impacts on glaciers.

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