Don David Gold Mine, Mexico

Project details

The project was developed in April 2013 by the Australian company AUSENCO, which since 1991 has been working in the design of engineering solutions for the mining industry around the world for Golden Trump Resources, the American company to which the Don David Gold Mexico Mine belongs.

The Don David mine is a subway gold and silver mine with base metals such as zinc and copper with a current production of 1,300 tons, the mine is located 109 kilometers from the capital city of the state of Oaxaca in Mexico in one of the most mountainous areas of the country.

In 2013 the goal was proposed to increase production to 1,500 tons / day and due to the fact that within its production process it requires a disposal site for the sludge or waste slats that come from the beneficiation plant better known as Jales, it was necessary to create a new deposit for these materials, i.e. a Jales Dam.

El Águila phase 3 tailings deposit project

The project contemplated the creation of a deposit for a capacity of 1,080,000 tons of material with a useful life of 2.05 years with a gross area of 124,200 m² , the area selected for the deposit is less than 2 kilometers from the point of generation.

The project sought to adapt the dam to the topography of the terrain to avoid excessive cuts and high embankments that would imply any reinforcement system in the terrain, even with this premise, the project presented slopes with heights of 68 meters and slope lengths of 120 linear meters, since the slopes were designed at angles of 1:1.5.

Specification of geosynthetics

Initially, it was specified the placement of a 1.14 mm black reinforced polypropylene geomembrane and GCL Bentonite Geocomposite with a double geotextile of 2.4 kg/m², however, at the end, the specification of the geomembrane was changed to LLDPE of 2.0 mm black color and the specification of the geocomposite remained the same.