VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - June 27, 2017) - Liberty Gold Inc. (TSX:LGD) ("Liberty Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") has approved Liberty Gold's Plan of Operations ("PoO") for the Goldstrike Oxide Gold Project in Utah. This key permit will allow Liberty Gold to expand drilling to test high-priority targets and build resource ounces across the 74.5 km2 property.
"Receipt of the Plan of Operations, as well as confirmation of excellent metallurgical recoveries, are two of the key deliverables for our company this year," says Cal Everett, President and CEO of Liberty Gold. "We now have excellent access to the entire 14 square kilometer historical mine trend, as well as a large number of peripheral targets. Liberty can now work to build ounces at an accelerated pace."
The BLM's Record of Decision and Finding of No Significant Impacts ("FONSI") were issued on June 26, 2017. The approved PoO allows Liberty Gold up to 77 acres for exploration and development drilling on up to 368 drill pads. Multiple drill holes can be drilled from a single pad. The PoO covers the Padre Pit area in the northeastern part of the Historic Mine Trend, as well as expanded access to the Dip Slope, Aggie, Warrior and Peg Leg targets and outlying targets identified by previous operators.
Map Outlining Area Covered by PoO
The map shows three linked priority areas for drilling (Main, Dip Slope and Western Grabens), with one drill allocated per area for resource definition.
Liberty Gold has completed 44,000 metres in 281 Reverse Circulation ("RC") and Core holes to date at Goldstrike under existing permits, testing less than 10% of the historical drill-defined, target areas. The Company recently added a third RC drill to the project to expedite infill, step-out and exploratory drilling.
The Company plans to amend the Plan of Operations to include additional target areas, reflecting a better understanding of the distribution and controls on mineralization gained during the 16 months since the original Plan of Operations was submitted in early 2016.
Goldstrike is located in the eastern Great Basin, immediately adjacent to the Utah/Nevada border, and is a Carlin-style gold system, similar in many ways to the prolific deposits located along Nevada's Carlin trend. Like Kinsley Mountain and Newmont's Long Canyon deposit, Goldstrike represents part of a growing number of Carlin-style gold systems located off the main Carlin and Cortez trends in underexplored parts of the Great Basin.
Complete Table of Results for All Drilling by Liberty Gold at Goldstrike from 2015 to June 2017
Moira Smith, Ph.D., P.Geo., Vice-President Exploration and Geoscience, Liberty Gold, is the Company's designated Qualified Person for this news release within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and has reviewed and validated that the information contained in the release is accurate. Drill composites were calculated using a cut-off of 0.20 g/t. Drill intersections are reported as drilled thicknesses. True widths of the mineralized intervals vary between 30 and 100% of the reported lengths due to varying drill hole orientations, but are typically in the range of 60 to 80% of true width. Drill samples were assayed by ALS Limited in Reno, Nevada for gold by Fire Assay of a 30 gram (1 assay ton) charge with an AA finish, or if over 5.0 g/t were re-assayed and completed with a gravimetric finish. For these samples, the gravimetric data were utilized in calculating gold intersections. For any samples assaying over 0.200 ppm an additional cyanide leach analysis is done where the sample is treated with a 0.25% NaCN solution and rolled for an hour. An aliquot of the final leach solution is then centrifuged and analyzed by AAS. Metallic screen techniques may be employed where the presence of coarse free gold is suspected. Approximately 1000 grams of coarse reject material are pulverized and screened. Two splits of the fine fraction are assayed, as well as all material that does not pass through the screen (the coarse fraction). The final gold assay reported is a weighted average of the coarse and fine fractions. QA/QC for all drill samples consists of the insertion and continual monitoring of numerous standards and blanks into the sample stream, and the collection of duplicate samples at random intervals within each batch. Selected holes are also analyzed for a 51 multi-element geochemical suite by ICP-MS. ALS Geochemistry-Reno is ISO 17025:2005 Accredited, with the Elko prep lab listed on the scope of accreditation.
Goldstrike is an early-stage exploration project and does not contain any mineral resource estimates as defined by NI 43-101. The potential quantities and grades disclosed herein are conceptual in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource for the targets disclosed herein. It is uncertain if further exploration will result in these targets being delineated as a mineral resource. Further information on Goldstrike is available in the technical report entitled "Technical Report on the Goldstrike Project, Washington County, Utah, U.S.A.", effective April 1, 2016 and dated October 7, 2016, prepared by Michael M. Gustin, C.P.G. and Moira Smith, Ph.D., P.Geo. found at the top of this page or under Liberty Gold's issuer profile in SEDAR (www.sedar.com).
ABOUT LIBERTY GOLD
Liberty Gold is led by a proven technical and capital markets team that continues to discover and define high-quality assets. Our flagship property is the Goldstrike Oxide Gold Project in Utah. Liberty also has a pipeline of projects, including Black Pine in Idaho and Kinsley Mountain in Nevada, providing a solid platform for future growth. Over the past 5 years, there have been 8 new open-pit, heap leach gold mines built around the world and the management team and/or directors of Liberty Gold are responsible for discovering, developing and/or building, two of them. Long Canyon in Nevada (Fronteer Gold) and Karma in Burkina Faso (True Gold) both reached commercial production in 2016.
