The El Capitan deposit has been known as a potential iron ore resource for several decades. The U.S. Bureau of Mines drilled approximately 140 shallow holes through the outcropping, shallow-dipping magnetite skarn deposit in 1944 and 1948. The outcropping deposit was mapped at a scale of 1:3,600 in 1952 (Kelley, 1952). Small-scale iron ore production totaled approximately 250,000 tons in the years 1961-1988. El Capitan Precious Metals, Inc. conducted a ground magnetic survey and a drill program of six shallow holes in 2002.

Although only low precious metals values had been obtained from the deposit by “standard” fire assay over the years and no significant exploration had been conducted on the property, in May, 2004 El Capitan Precious Metals, Inc. submitted a few samples of magnetite iron skarn to a metallurgical laboratory in Salt Lake City, Utah. The lab separated the samples into magnetic and non-magnetic fractions and reported significant gold and platinum results on the non-magnetic fractions using their proprietary caustic fusion assay method. These results prompted a 32-sample surface sampling and assay program conducted January, 2005. The lab reported potential ore-grade gold and platinum results on all 32 samples; this caused El Capitan Precious Metals, Inc. to undertake three stages of diamond core, open-hole rotary, and reverse circulation drilling to outline the existing 141 million tons of Measured Resource with a gold equivalent grade of 0.044 opt.