Aurania appoints senior geological consultant, Dr. Cristian Vallejo

Dr. Keith Barron, commented, “Because of the proximity of Aurania’s Crunchy Hill, Latorre, and Yawi epithermal prospects, I believe that the gold coming from the small alluvial gold mine near Patuca has its ultimate origin from the Aurania concessions.  Cristian Vallejo has been retained to provide us guidance in this respect, using his knowledge of sedimentology.”

Dr. Vallejo is an Ecuadorian national and a Geologist with twenty-two years experience in the mining/oil industry and academia.  During his PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Zurich) he worked on the geology of the Oriente Basin of Ecuador and the geodynamic evolution of the Western Cordillera of Ecuador and Colombia.  In these studies, he applied field mapping, sedimentology, organic matter analysis, radiometric dating of igneous rocks, isotope geochemistry and provenance analysis.

After finishing his PhD he worked for two years as Project Manager of Salazar Resources in the Curipamba Project, being part of the team that discovered the El Domo Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide deposit (VMS), currently in the mine construction phase.

During the last twelve years he has worked as a consultant for the oil industry in the geological modelling of the main oil fields of the Oriente Basin of Ecuador, Putumayo, Guajira and Magdalena basins of Colombia and the Peten Basin of Guatemala.  The results of his studies have been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at international geological meetings. 

Most recently Cristian was lead author on: “Jurassic to Early Paleogene sedimentation in the Amazon region of Ecuador: Implications for the paleogeographic evolution of northwestern South America” published in September 2021.  This work specifically refers to geological mapping he carried out in the Cordillera de Cutucu, within the confines of Aurania’s Lost Cities Project.

Dr. Barron further commented, “Back in 2008 there was only a single small miner’s concession at Patuca where they were recovering gold by hydrauliking hillsides and catching the gold in wooden sluice boxes.  It was a very primitive operation, but it supported about a dozen people.  What impressed me at the time was that this was clearly not a modern placer, but an ancient “paleoplacer” of unknown age.  The source of the gold was not apparent, neither was there a stream or river nearby, though the deposit indicated that a substantial river must have existed there at one time.  More recently, there has been what can only be described as an “explosion” of small miner activity and the majority of flowing streams in the Patuca area have now been staked, but this is a “red herring”.  From a geological perspective, the miners may not appreciate that the gold occurrence, worked since 2008, is a fossil system.  They are however recovering small amounts of “second or third cycle” gold; in other words, capturing gold from erosion of this paleoplacer and others nearby. 

On a greater scale however, I believe Cristian is Ecuador’s authority on the Cutucu Basin, which contains Aurania’s copper-silver and zinc-silver-lead prospects hosted in sediments at Tsenken and Tiria-Shimpia.  Due to his enormous experience in stratigraphy and sedimentology in the area he will be a valuable addition to Aurania’s team, and I believe will have much to contribute on these exciting prospects.  For now, he will be examining and evaluating all of Aurania’s information collected to date.” 

Qualified Person

The geological information contained in this news release has been verified and approved by Jean-Paul Pallier, MSc. Mr. Pallier is a designated EurGeol by the European Federation of Geologists and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators. 

About Aurania

Aurania is a mineral exploration company engaged in the identification, evaluation, acquisition and exploration of mineral property interests, with a focus on precious metals and copper in South America.  Its flagship asset, The Lost Cities – Cutucu Project, is located in the Jurassic Metallogenic Belt in the eastern foothills of the Andes mountain range of southeastern Ecuador.

Information on Aurania and technical reports are available at www.aurania.com and www.sedar.com, as well as on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/auranialtd/, Twitter at  https://twitter.com/auranialtd, and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/aurania-resources-ltd-.

Forward-Looking Statements

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