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El Dorado

Project Description

The El Dorado gold project is located 65 km east of El Salvador's capital city San Salvador, and 12 km west of the city of Sensuntepeque (pop. 49,000). The project comprises three exploration licenses that total 144 square kilometers (14,400 hectares) and are 100% owned by Pacific Rim. In accordance with El Salvadoran law, Pacific Rim presented a request for the conversion of a portion of the El Dorado exploration licenses to an exploitation concession in December 2004. The Company is awaiting its granting of an exploitation concession (the only permit required to commence operations).

The El Dorado project is accessible by a paved highway that crosses the center of the property. The travel time from the project site to downtown San Salvador is approximately 1.5 hours. The area has a large rural population and Sensuntepeque is a moderate sized town. Unskilled labour and persons with general business and technical skills are readily available. El Salvador does not have an indigenous mining industry, so local personnel will be trained with exploration and mining skills.

The usual public utilities are available in Sensuntepeque. The communication infrastructure, including telephone and internet, is serviceable. The existing buildings on the project site are connected to the national electrical grid, but the power supply as currently configured is not considered reliable enough to service a mine.

The terrain in the El Dorado project area is one of moderate relief surrounded by higher hills to the north, east, and west. Elevations range between 200 m and 800 m above sea level. A tropical climate prevails, with a pronounced wet season from May to October and a dry season the remainder of the year. The project area contains shallow topsoils and volcanic subsoils that are cultivated for seasonal crops. Five perennial streams or rivers traverse the El Dorado project area. Water levels vary with the seasons: good flows are maintained during the wet season but many run dry during the dry season.

The El Dorado project hosts a very large (roughly 12 km by 4 km) adularia-sericite (or "low-sulfidation") epithermal gold system, in which gold and silver are hosted in veins that occupy a series of fault structures. In epithermal systems, precious metals are carried by fluids, and precipitate out of solution under certain pressure and temperature conditions known as the 'boiling zone'. Typical of similar epithermal systems worldwide, including the Midas and Sleeper Mines in Nevada, the El Penon Mine in Chile and the Hishikari Mine in Japan, high grade mineralization at El Dorado occurs in distinct, periodic concentrations within the boiling zone or "productive interval", which at El Dorado is between 0 and 400 meters above sea level.

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