The San Rafael property consists of five mineral claims covering 1,005 hectares in Durango, located approximately 150 km northwest of Durango city. It is readily accessible year-round. The property is a past producer with four underground levels totalling 400 m, with only 200 m of a known 1.6-kilometre strike length explored. San Rafael is a low-sulphidation, epithermal, gold-silver vein deposit similar to Goldcorp Inc., Penoles and Great Panther's projects along Sierra Madre Occidental.
Historic sample results reported by previous mine operators were independently confirmed by recent channel samples that average 13.86 grams per tonne Au and 175.88 g/t Ag over a width of 3.8 m. The Property hosts a past producer, the San Rafael Mine (gold-silver), which consists of four levels, totaling about 400 metres of development, plus other short adits in other parts of the property. Recent sampling undertaken during due diligence of the Property returned very encouraging precious metal values. For example, a series of three continuous chip samples (#101012-101014), totaling 3.8 metres, taken across the back of the Esperanza adit, averaged 13.86 g/t gold and 175.88 g/t silver. Historical sampling from this area reportedly produced similar precious metal values (11.12 g/t gold and 234 g/t silver over an unspecified interval). Sample #101018 from the Esperanza dump returned 21 g/t gold and 6,600 g/t (or 6.6 kg/t) silver, exhibiting likely presence of polybasite with associated native gold or possibly electrum.
The 1,000-hectare San Rafael Property is located 154 kilometres west-northwest from the state capital city of Durango, Mexico, 30 kilometers to the northwest of the Tayoltita Mine and 34 kilometers to the southwest of the Bacis Mine. Year round access is by paved highway from Durango City to San Miguel de Cruces, 35 kilometers to the east of San Rafael, and continues on gravel and forestry grade roads to the Property. The hydro transmission line that services communities in the area and the Tayoltita Mine from the Las Truchas Hydro Dam lies 15 kilometers to the east of the Property. Geologically, the Property is situated within the Sierra Madre Occidental, a northwest-striking, linear volcanic belt of Tertiary age. Approximately 4.5 km of a northwest-trending regional structure, the San Rafael Fault, is host to quartz veins, vein breccias and/or silicified zones on the Property. The San Rafael deposit is a structurally controlled, low sulphidation epithermal gold-silver vein deposit, similar to a number of epithermal deposits located along this northwest-trending structure throughout the Sierra Madre Occidental, from the San Dimas (Tayoltita) camp to the south to beyond the Topia Camp to the north. The San Rafael vein typically carries iron (hematite) and manganese oxides, native gold and silver in the form of sulfosalts (polybasite) and silver chloride (cerargyrite) with quartz, calcite and aragonite as gangue minerals.
