The Pascua-Lama property is located in the high Andean Mountains, in what has been designated as the Eastern Belt of Hydrothermal Alteration. The gold, silver, and copper mineralization and alteration assemblages at Pascua-Lama are associated with a structurally controlled acid sulfate hydrothermal system hosted by intrusive and volcanic rock sequences of Upper Paleozoic and Middle Tertiary age.

Alteration and mineralization is of the high-sulfidation, epithermal type. As is typical with high-sulfidation epithermal deposits, the principal metal commodities at Pascua-Lama are gold and silver – the copper content is usually sub-economic.

Numerous breccias bodies occur in the Esperanza, Quebrada de Pascua and Lama areas. At the surface, these breccias vary in size from outcrops measured in centimeters up to hundreds of meters. Typically the breccias show a strong correlation to zones of intersection of two or more major structural zones. Breccia Central, the large inter mineral breccia pipe, occurs in the Quebrada de Pascua area. On the surface, this breccia body is about 650 meters long and up to 250 meters in width, while underground, between 200 and 400 meters below the surface, the composite body measures about 550 meters in length and up to 130 meters in width. It extends to at least 700 meters below surface. This well mineralized breccia pipe is evidence of an explosive hydrothermal event related to the formation of the Quebrada de Pascua ore deposit. Breccia Oeste and Breccia Sur are the two large post mineralization breccias pipe complexes located in the mine area. Oriented north/south along the Breccia Oeste fault zone in the Esperanza area, the Breccia Oeste pipe measures up to 500 meters long, up to 150 meters wide, and extends up to 300 meters below surface.

The Pascua-Lama project is designed as a large-scale open pit operation centered at an elevation of 4,800 meters with processing facilities having an initial designed throughput capacity of 45,000 tonnes per day.

The planned plant would consist of primary crushing, wet grinding in autogenous mills, ball milling, CCD washing, pre-aeration, oxygen assisted cyanide leaching, CCD thickening for pregnant solution recovery, neutralization, cyanide detoxification, precipitation using Merrill-Crowe, retorting, smelting and tailings deposition. For the treatment of the refractory ore, a flotation circuit will be added. The processing plant is designed to operate 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. The average design throughput would be approximately 2,000 tonnes per hour. Based on existing reserves and the designed production capacity, the expected mine life would be approximately 25 years.