VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Junior explorer Aurania Resources has appointed board member Dr Richard Spencer as its new president.

Spencer, who will continue to act in his current roles of president and CEO of TSX-listed U3O8 Corp, will be responsible for the financial and operational performance of Aurania, as it searches for ancient gold mines in Ecuador.

Dr Keith Barron will maintain the role of CEO and will continue as chairperson of the board. Barron is also the founder of Aurelian Resources, and is credited with being the geologist who discovered the Fruta del Norte deposit – one of Ecuador’s biggest gold discoveries that later sold for $1.2-billion and is currently under development by Lundin Gold.

Spencer brings both corporate and technical experience relevant to Aurania and to its flagship Lost Cities - Cutucu project, Aurania said in a statement Monday.

A geologist by trade, Spencer brings a decade of experience in Ecuador, having led Gencor’s exploration team that made the grassroots discovery of the San Carlos, Mirador and Panantza porphyries that contain an estimated 24-billion pounds of copper and 3-million ounces of gold. These deposits lie in the area immediately south, and along trend of the Lost Cities - Cutucu project.

Spencer also worked at Iamgold, where his team discovered the Quimsacocha - Loma Larga deposit, also in Ecuador, containing resources of 3-million ounces of gold and 23-million ounces of silver. He later joined Crystallex International as VP for exploration, working on the Las Cristinas gold deposit, in Venezuela, where his team increased gold reserves by 6.6-million ounces. He was appointed to the company's board on March 6 this year.

"I look forward to integrating the exploration techniques that were so successful in the area immediately adjacent to Aurania's project area with more modern techniques to identify targets more efficiently,” Spencer stated.

ASSET ACQUISITION
Aurania also announced on Monday that shareholders have approved the acquisition of Ecuadorian firm EcuaSolidus (ESA), at the annual and special meeting of shareholders of the corporation held on Friday.

ESA holds the Lost Cities - Cutucu project, comprising 42 mineral exploration licences covering 207 764 ha over the core of the Cordillera de Cutucu, a mountain range in the foothills of the Andes, in Ecuador. In a recent interview with Mining Weekly Online, Barron described how Spanish immersion got him interested in finding the lost cities of the Spanish conquistadores.

As history states, there were seven prominent gold mining cities in Ecuador in the days of the conquistadors, and while five have been rediscovered, two, Logroño de los Caballeros and Sevilla del Oro are still ‘lost’. Today, there are hundreds of historic and contemporary documents that prove that Logroño de los Caballeros and Sevilla del Oro existed, that they produced gold and that they are now lost somewhere in the Cordillera de Cutucu.

Aurania has completed a $6.4-million financing in April, co-led by Maison Placements Canada and Red Cloud Klondike Strike, and will use the proceeds to fund the transaction and for property exploration, loan repayments and working capital.