Geologic Setting

REGIONAL GEOLOGY

Vizcachitas occurs near the southern end of the north-south-trending Neogene metallogenic belt that extends along the western slopes of the Andean Cordillera in Chile and Argentina. The belt includes numerous large copper-molybdenum porphyries such as Río Blanco-Los Bronces (50 million tonnes contained copper), Los Pelambres-El Pachon (25 million tonnes contained copper) and El Teniente (75 million tonnes contained copper).

In central Chile, the Neogene metallogenic belt coincides with the position of Miocene volcanic centers and associated volcanic rocks, sills and dikes. The Miocene volcanic sequence averages 2,500 m in thickness and consists of andesite and basalt flows and sills and dacite with intercalations of rhyolitic tuff. This is known as the Farallones Formation. These rocks unconformably overlie folded Oligocene to early Miocene andesitic volcanic and continental sedimentary rocks of the Abanico Formation.

Miocene-Pliocene porphyry copper-molybdenum deposits occur within the hydrothermal alteration zones related to multiphase porphyritic intrusives ranging in composition from quartz diorite to granodiorite. Country rocks range from late Miocene basaltic and andesitic volcanic rocks and gabbro at El Teniente to middle Miocene granodiorite at Río Blanco-Los Bronces and folded Early Cretaceous volcanic and sedimentary rocks at Los Pelambres.

PROPERTY GEOLOGY

At Vizcachitas, there are at least six equigranular intrusive rock types, three porphyritic rock types and four distinct types of breccia, all of which cover an area of approximately four km2 . All of these rock types intrude the Cretaceous-age porphyritic andesite of the Los Pelambres Formation – the main volcanic unit in the area.

Flat-lying volcanic rocks of the Miocene-age Farellones Formation disconformably overly the andesite of the Los Pelambres Formation. At Vizcachitas, the Farellones Formation forms the mountain peaks in the district and is visible on surrounding hilltops above the older volcanic and intrusive rocks that are altered and mineralized. A sample of the Farellones Formation, collected less than two km from the Vizcachitas prospect, was age dated by the Servicio Nacional de Geologia y Mineria of Chile (“SNGM”) at 12.3 +/- 0.4 million years old (“Ma”). Four of the intrusive rock units have been dated between 10.4 and 12 +/- 0.3 Ma.