The rate of separation into free ions of a geminate ion pair generated by photoinduced electron transfer between 9,lO-anthraquinone excited to the lowest triplet state and 1,2,4-trimethoxybenzenein 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane has been measured at different temperatures by nanosecond time-resolved resonance Raman spectroscopy (TR3). The intrinsic activation energy for the separation amounts to 0.04 eV, suggesting that the center-to-center interionic distance in the geminate ion pair is about 7.5 A. The activation barrier is due to a loss of electrostatic stabilization upon separation to a distance of about 9.5 A, where a solvent molecule or part of it can interpenetrate to increase the solvation energy. This suggests that the geminate ion pair is a loose ion pair but is not truly solvent separated.