Silver and gold mineralization in the Project area can be grouped into the low sulphidation epithermal model of precious metal deposits. These types of deposits are found worldwide and have been commonly formed during the Cretaceous to Holocene.

The veins in the Project area consist of several stages of banded, crustiform (to colloform; quartz and cryptocrystalline quartz at shallow depths, adularia, barite and typically later carbonates both calcite and rhodochrosite, "illitic clay" (illite) commonly replaces the adularia (Coote, 2010). There are variable amounts of pyrite, sphalerite and galena plus argentite, and variable amounts of tetrahedrite-tennantite, freibergite and Ag sulfosalts.

The Ag:Au ratio is high, approximately 500:1 for the resource. Supergene oxidation extends to at least 300 m depth, and includes manganese oxide. There is abundant adularia, bladed calcite textures and coexisting vapor-rich and liquid-rich inclusions, all indicating an ascending, boiling fluid, consistent with the abundant evidence for brecciation, which suggests that that mixing caused metal deposition and carbonate formation.

Petrographic studies of the veins in Deposit, find that multiple stages of silver and base metal mineralization are associated with repeated fluid boiling and mixing events, defined by crustiform banded fill/cement assemblages within a framework of intermittent and more significant fracturing/rupturing of wall rock and pre-existing vein/cement assemblages. There is a repetition of common hydrothermal fill/cement mineralogy, including ore minerals, such that correlation of vein/cement assemblages/events between drillhole intersections would be difficult.

The occurrence of adularia and style of early quartz and chalcedonic quartz replacement amongst wall rock replacement and fracture-fill/cement assemblages confirms silver and base metal mineralization associated with low sulphidation, epithermal style systems developed on the Martha and Olin structures at the Project. Significant widths of mineralized quartz and carbonate dominated fracture-fill and breccia cement assemblages have developed as a result of extended episodes of hydrothermal fluid flow and repeated rupturing of wall rock and pre-existing vein/cement assemblages. Internal crustiform banding within the different voluminous fill/cement assemblages represents incremental opening and filling of fractures/cavities between major rupturing events.

The Martha vein is the largest vein in the deposit by far, with at least 3 times the volume of the next largest vein, La Abundancia. Both veins are low angle, the Martha vein dips ~20-30°, following the SW-dipping contact of volcaniclastic rocks overlying an immature conglomeratic unit (consisting mainly of polylithic clast-supported fragmental rock with angular to sub-rounded clasts), or the underlying schist.

There are also high-angle veins in the west on the ridge, such as La Gloria vein, the largest of this set of veins. These high-angle veins can be considered as a mineralized zone or lode of stock work, silicification, breccias, veins, vein breccias, veinlets, and a general mix of multiple styles of mineralization. Within this broader zone, for example the Martha lode ranges from 1 m to 35 m thicknesses and averages approximately 5m.

The Project mine plan was developed using conventional hard rock open pit mining methods. No underground resource was envisioned in this mine plan. While a smaller, higher grade portion of the resource could be recovered in an underground mine, the scale and percent recovery of the resource would be substantially diminished. In addition, the complicated structure of the low angle Martha vein which makes up 60% of the resource would make underground mining complicated and costly.

Scoping studies indicated that a production schedule filling the mill at 10,000 tpd maximized the Project return on investment. The total material rate is tied to equipment productivity. The total material moved ramps up to 214,000 tonnes per day in year 6, and averages 60,400 ktonnes/yr or 167,700 tpd for the first 10 years. The mine is scheduled to operate 365 days/yr with two, 12-hour shifts/day.

The mill feed will be delivered from the mine at a rate of 10,000 dtpd. A primary jaw crusher will crush the ore. Crushed ore will be ground in a closed SAG and ball mill grinding circuit. Ground material will be leached with sodium cyanide in agitated leach tanks. Soluble precious metals are washed from the leached slurry then recovered in the MerrillCrowe process. The precious metal precipitate will be smelted to produce doré bars. Tailings will be thickened then routed to either the cyanide destruction circuit or to the tailing storage facility.