The Mogote Property

The Mogote property is under a joint venture agreement with Amera Resouces (AMS.V), whereby Amera can earn a 75% interest in the project by issuing shares and completing staged exploration expenditures totalling $4,250,000 over a three year period beginning on July 1, 2004. The project comprises four contiguous large blocks and three small "minas" and encompasses a total area of 8009 hectares.

• Large gold-copper porphyry target.
• Five exploration targets identified to date with high potential for additional discoveries
• Broad zones of intense alteration.
• Exploration underway to define drill targets.

The Mogote Property is situated along the Andean Cordillera between Argentina and Chile. This region is prolifically endowed with exceptionally large bulk-tonnage gold and copper deposits. Mogote is situated directly south of the Maricunga Gold-Copper Belt and along trend and north of the El Indio-Pascua-Lama-Veladero belt. This intermediary region between these two very well know mineral districts is underexplored, yet it has considerable potential for discovery. A partial list of stakeholders in the belt, including Barrick, Newmont, Noranda, Tenke, Phelps Dodge, Viceroy, reflects this area's perceived potential.

The Mogote claims cover a large and highly favourable land package, which shares geological and structural characteristics with areas hosting mineral deposits to the north and south. World-class porphyry and epithermal deposits, which occur within these prolific mineral districts include: El Indio, Pascua-Lama, Veladero, Marte-Lobo, Cerro Casale and Refugio.

Exploration targets at Mogote are gold-copper porphyry systems and high-sulphidation epithermal gold (Veladero type) systems. Preliminary surface exploration work has lead to the discovery of five significant zones of alteration and mineralization within a 4.0 by 10.0 kilometre area. Limited results to date have returned highly anomalous copper and gold values ranging up to 2.9 g/t Au, 2.8% Cu, and 196 g/t Ag in rocks and values ranging up to 0.78 g/t Au, 5650 ppm Cu, 0.78 g/t Au and 9.3 g/t Ag in talus fines samples.

At Mogote, broad zones of hydrothermal alteration and subsequent weathering have created large colour anomalies that have only been evaluated in a preliminary nature. These target areas are south of a prominent northwest trending regional structure, which has apparently down-dropped rocks to the south. This southern area of the property is considered highly prospective for high-level epithermal gold-silver mineralization (Veladero-style). In the northern part of the property, an area of anomalous copper and gold in talus and rock samples has been defined over a 3.0 kilometre by 4.0 kilometre area. This target is consitent with a Gold-Copper Porphyry system.

Location and Access

The Mogote Property lies 350 kilometers northwest of the city of San Juan, in the northwest of San Juan province, Argentina. The property lies immediately to the east of, and is partly contiguous with the Chile/Argentine border.

The property is located on the upper eastern slopes of the Andean Cordillera, with elevations ranging from 4,300 to 5,100 metres above sea level. Physiographically, the property comprises steep talus-covered slopes shedding off barren rock ridges. Vegetation is minimal except in a few sheltered valley areas. Geologic work is practical during the southern summer in the months of October to April.

Access to the property is possible from either Chile or Argentina, but because special arrangements need to be made to cross the international border, practical access is currently from the Argentine side. The nearest supply point where most goods and services are available is the town of Villa Union in La Rioja Province. From here, the property is accessible by road using a 4X4 vehicle. Total distance from Villa Union is approximately 320 km, and travel time is 8 - 9 hours. A semi-permanent shelter has been constructed at the southeast corner of the property and has been used as a base for exploration work.

Regional Geologic Setting and Mineral Deposits

The Mogote Property is situated between the Maricunga porphyry gold belt (Vila and Sillitoe, 1991) to the north and the El Indio high sulphidation gold belt (Jannas et al., 1999) to the south (Fig. 1). Both belts are of Late Oligocene to Early -- Middle Miocene age. To the west in Chile the Late Eocene -- Oligocene age copper porphyry metallogenic belt includes major deposits such as El Salvador, La Escondida and Chuquicamata. These metallogenic belts represent two principal epochs of mineralization, namely an earlier copper-dominant event during the Eocene and Oligocene, followed by a gold-dominant event during the Miocene (Vila and Sillitoe, 1991). The Mogote Property is believed to host mineralization which is representative of the second (Miocene age) gold-rich event.

Satellite images and regional geologic mapping (Panteleyev and Cravero, 2000) covering the Mogote claims demonstrate that a regional scale northwest-trending linear structure bisects the property. Work on the Mogote property suggests that this structure represents a regional scale fault with down drop movement on the south side. Mineralized intermediate intrusive and related breccias have been identified north of the fault, while to the south the mapping has identified a dominant intermediate to felsic volcanic setting. It is interpreted that the northern exposures represent an exposed gold--copper porphyry system while the exposures to the south is represent higher-level alteration indicative of a high-sulphidation system. The close spatial association of these two styles of gold mineralization is well documented in the Maricunga Belt to the north of Mogote (e.g. Figure 4 in Vila and Sillitoe, 1991).