The claims are located a few miles West and Northwest of Petaca, New Mexico, Rio Arriba county, USA.

Access to the claims is via Forest Road 45 and small jeep trails leading into the claims north and south of the main dirt road.

Precambrian granites containing hundreds of pegmatites underlie the area. These pegmatites are known to contain an abundance of monazite, xenotime, samarskite, ferrocolumbite, and ferrotantalite. According to the New Mexico Geological Survey more than 2000 feet of vertical weathering has taken place since the pegmatites were emplaced. Weathering and subsequent accumulation of the aforementioned heavy minerals has resulted in the formation of placer deposits that contain millions of pounds valuable rare-earth elements.

The pegmatites of Petaca district have been mined for sheet and scap mica since the late 1800's. Although the Col-Tan resource is known to exist, no systematic mining of available placer ground has ever been done. In the early 50's ASARCO did a preliminary study to determine the placer value of the area. According to their research the properties have a high potential for the production of Col-Tan. As mentioned in the summary section the REE values were ignored back in the 50's. Significant amounts of monazite were found as well small amounts of cassiterite and gold.