The Marlin deposit: The Discovery of a world Class Au-Ag deposit in western Guatemala

The Marlin deposit was discovered in December 1998 in Western Guatemala.
The discovery was the result of a grass roots exploration program focused on the
volcanic terrains of the Western Sierra Madre, then a non explored region.
The deposit is located in a regional corridor of hydrothermal alteration zones
associated with regional strike slip faulting systems, which are part of the transformant
faults that extend from the Caribbean Ocean across Guatemala and Chiapas,
Mexico and intersect the Cocos Plate subduction zone in the Pacific Ocean. This tectonic
suture zone is the boundary between the North American Plate and the
Caribbean plate and defines the Mayan block to the north and the Chorties block to
the south.
Marlin is a structurally controlled volcanic hosted Au-Ag low sulfidation epithermal
deposit, with resources of more than five million ounces gold-equivalent. It will be
in production in 2006.
Precious metals epithermal mineralization is hosted within faults affecting Tertiary
andesitic rocks and bedded volcano.sedimentary rocks. The ore consists of multistage
quartz breccia veins and stockworks related to broad argillized zones in surface
outcrops but propylitized at depth. Geochemistry of the deposit is very simple: a goldsilver
ratio of 1:10 and no associated base metals or other elements.