There’s a new gold fever spreading through the markets, but forget the old prospectors with their pans. This time the game is played with cutting-edge technology, on the Maricunga strip, a desert, almost lunar stretch of northern Chile suspended thousands of meters above sea level.
Two mining giants recently announced a major discovery there that promises to change the rules of the game. In recent years, gold has become the safe-haven asset par excellence against economic uncertainty, so it’s no surprise that this find is drawing the attention, and the capital, of investors around the world.
The size and quality of the precious metal identified are such that the companies involved have immediately accelerated their plans to move into actual extraction. As a result, the impact on the country’s economy is likely to be felt within a few months, with new jobs and infrastructure triggering a domino effect across the entire financial sector tied to precious metals.
Who’s behind the gold rush in Chile’s Atacama desert
The discovery of a substantial gold deposit has quickly drawn the attention of major international players. Behind the announcement are two mining companies that have been betting heavily on the Atacama desert: Australia’s Flagship Minerals and Canada’s Tiernan Gold.
Both companies have concentrated their efforts on the Franja de Maricunga (Maricunga strip), and their results have exceeded the initial estimates of geology experts. Specifically, Tiernan Gold is running a mega-project called Volcán. The company has confirmed that more than 90% of the gold identified falls into a high-confidence geological category, meaning engineers know precisely where to dig and how much gold they will find, minimizing the risk of error. The company’s chief executive, Paul Lock, called the discovery a historic breakthrough that will pave the way to full commercial production by 2027.
On the Australian side, Flagship Minerals has stepped up work at its Isidora Norte site, injecting fresh funding to start operations as quickly as possible and confirming that the entire area amounts to a genuine open-pit gold mine.
The government’s role and the Lobo Marte project
Chile’s government, led by President José Antonio Kast, has shown strong interest in facilitating investment in the mining sector, seeing this gold rush as a decisive boost for the national economy. Right now, political attention is focused above all on another, even larger neighboring project: the Lobo Marte deposit, run by mining major Kinross. The company is reportedly planning around $3 billion in investment.
The goal is to launch an extraction plan lasting 21 years in total, split into several phases. The first three and a half years will be dedicated to building high-tech facilities, followed by 16 years of intensive extraction and, finally, two years devoted to closing the site and restoring the surrounding landscape. Estimates suggest this single deposit alone could yield around 9.8 million ounces of gold.
What’s happening on the Maricunga strip isn’t an isolated case, but part of a broader exploration boom across the country. Chile has recorded a steady rise in authorized exploration campaigns, up from 99 in 2024 to 104 in 2025, a trend that continues to climb this year as well.
Sustainability and the environment: high-altitude engineering challenges
So far it all sounds almost too easy. But extracting gold at 4,000 meters of altitude, in the middle of the driest desert on Earth, is anything but a walk in the park. The engineering challenges are enormous, and the real test lies in sustainability. Chile’s environmental laws are strict, and its citizens pay close attention to the impact large-scale mining can have on the land, particularly when it comes to water use, an especially precious resource in that part of the world.
The companies have therefore deployed their best available technology. Tiernan Gold has already installed a network of advanced weather stations to monitor air quality and dust levels, working closely with Conaf (Chile’s national forestry service). The company has also launched in-depth environmental impact studies to ensure extraction relies on closed-loop water recycling systems and renewable energy sources.
Editor’s note
This article was originally published in Italian on money.it by Emanuela Ceccarelli on July 12, 2026 as «Nuova corsa all’oro al Nord, due colossi minerari annunciano una maxi scoperta nella Striscia di Maricunga». It has been translated and adapted for an international audience by the Money.it International desk.
