Overview

The Corrales property is located in southernmost Chihuahua state, Mexico, in an exceptionally productive regional ore deposit trend roughly 200 km SSE of the capital city of Chihuahua and about 60 km East of the historic mining community of Hildalgo del Parral .

This regional trend is host to a number large scale Carbonate Replacement type deposits including the famous polymetallic Naica Mine approximately 100 km to the north. Naica is a silver lead copper zinc mine operated by Industrias Penoles that has produced in excess of 35 million tonnes of lead silver zinc ores and is currently Mexico's richest and largest lead mine.

The property consists of two concessions aggregating 8400 Hectares (32 square miles) owned outright by Cardero Resources and optioned to Ethos.

This part of northern Mexico is essentially a high plateau averaging 1500 meters above sea level. Isolated small ranges protrude from this plateau and may reach elevations of + 2000 meters

One such range occupies the north central part of the property and its southernmost reaches constitute the main area of interest

The property has excellent access and infrastructure being roughly 40 minutes by road from the city of Ciudad Jimenez

The concessions are practically unexplored. The small Lolita concession leased by Cardero was originally acquired for barite and has two small quarries. The barite is syngenetic and has no relation to the later Zn-Pb-Ag-Cu mineralization. This mineralization was found during ground reconnaissance and prospecting by Cardero personnel. The mineral occurrences are not recorded in the Consejo de Recursos Minerales data base nor are the old workings/showings shown on any map.


At the very southern end of the isolated mountain range known as Cerro Corrales a number of shallow pits and underground workings dating from the 1930's expose oxidized, carbonate replacement type, Zn-Pb-Ag-Cu showings. The area is ejido land but there are no buildings within 3 km. of the showings area. The small village of Corrales is located 5 km to the WSW.

On the property near the southern boundary of the Lolita concession very low temperature, carbonate replacement type Zn-Pb-Ag-Cu mineralization is found in a zone measuring 1100 metres (NW- SE) by 100 -- 300 metres (SE-SW) and is covered by shallow alluvium immediately to the south, southeast and west. In other words the mineralization clearly extends for some distance under shallow cover on three sides. The area of shallow cover is flat and extends for at least 4 km away from the known mineralization in three directions.

The host rock of the mineralization is a relatively shallow west dipping (5-10 degrees) sequence of grey fossiliferous limestone of the lower Cretaceous Aurora formation. In the area of mineralization the limestone is bleached, re-crystallized and altered to varying degrees

Mineralization consists of small irregular replacement bodies (lenses, mantos, chimneys) as well as very fine quartz veins, micro breccias and stockworks. The majority of the visible Pb-Zn-Cu mineralization is oxidized (hemimorphite, hydrozincite and various zinc rich limonites, pyromorphite, plumbojarosite and cerusite and grey and blue secondary copper minerals --chrysocola, malachite, tenorite and neotozite.

Locally there is some high grade material (0.5 to 1% copper, up to 8% combined Pb-Zn and +400 g/t Ag). Considering the low grade values present in outcrop between the main showings and the edges of known mineralization, there is certainly potential for a bulk tonnage situation.

In summary, the overall conclusion is that the very top of a polymetallic, mineralized system is exposed here and that it is open in 3 directions at surface for an unknown distance. There has been no previous exploration work other than reconnaissance mapping and sampling by Cardero and the mineralized system could be much larger and have significant depth potential. Examples of similar types of deposits in production in Mexico at the present time include the Naica, as well as Grupo Mexico's San Martin and Charcas mines.

The project is essentially "drill ready". All that is required is an induced polarization/ resistivity survey to get a sense of the size and geometry of the system so that drill targets may be prioritized