The Deseado Massif hosts numerous Middle to Late Jurassic age geothermal and epithermal features represented by siliceous and calcareous chemical precipitates from hot springs, hydrothermal breccias, quartz veins, and widespread hydrothermal silicification.

Gold and silver mineralisation is typically hosted in low sulphidation, epithermal deposits where mineralisation occurs within sub-vertically oriented quartz-breccia veins.

MDN is situated within the world renowned Deseado Massif where the underlying geology of the region is dominated by rhyolitic and andesitic volcanic and tuffaceous volcaniclastic lithologies of Middle to Upper Jurassic age (130 to 170 ma).

The Deseado Massif region is host to several multi-million ounce epithermal gold and silver deposits including Cerro Vanguardia (Anglo Gold Ashanti), Cerro Negro (Newmont GoldCorp), Cerro Morro (Yamana) with most discoveries major discoveries as recent as 1990’s onwards. 

At La Paloma, the Sulfuro-Esperanza-Rocio vein system comprises narrow, accurate, steeply dipping quartz-breccia veins. The Sulfuro vein is the main deposit and is represented by a single, well developed quartz vein typically 2 to 8 metres (m) in thickness and has a primarily northwest-south southeast orientation with a steep southwest dip. Associated sulphide minerals include pyrite and minor galena and sphalerite.

The La Paloma veins remain open-ended at depth. At Martinetas, multiple mineralised structures occur as “vein swarms” with the development of minor intervening stockwork veins and veinlets. A number of resource areas have been delineated at Martinetas. The principal resource is obtained from the Coyote and Cerro Oro deposits which comprise a series of narrow, sub-parallel, anastomosing quartz veins varying in width from tens of centimetres (cm) to several metres, and typically averaging 1 m in thickness.