VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Liberty Gold Corp. (TSX:LGD) (“Liberty Gold” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has completed an initial round of drilling at the Black Pine Project, one of its three principle gold projects located in the prolific Great Basin of the United States.
Black Pine, located in southeastern Idaho, is a past-producing heap leach oxide gold mine that contains a large, shallow, district-scale, Carlin-style gold system, similar in nature and scale to Liberty Gold’s Goldstrike Project.
In late 2017, twelve reverse circulation (RC) holes were drilled from five locations within a large, 12 square kilometre target area. The drilling has thus far succeeded in validating historical results adjacent to a historical pit and more importantly, demonstrated exceptional exploration upside beneath the limit of shallow historical drilling.
Drill results highlights from LBP002:
- 0.58 grams per tonne gold (g/t Au) over 39.6 metres (m), including 1.54 g/t Au over 4.6 m starting near surface
- 1.10 g/t Au over 15.2 m including 1.55 g/t Au over 7.6 m
- 1.49 g/t Au over 77.7 m including 5.64 g/t Au over 6.1m and 3.23 g/t Au over 15.2 m.
Drill result highlights from LBP003 (testing shallow mineralization):
- 0.53 g/t Au over 27.4 m and 0.61 g/t Au over 15.2 m.
KEY POINTS
- LBP002 was drilled next to a historical pit that produced 11,200,000 tonnes of ore averaging 0.6 g/t Au for a total of 198,043 ounces of gold.
- LBP002 validated a shallow historical hole and extended to depth the oxide gold mineralization to twice the average historical drill hole depth on the property, at twice the average historical mined gold grade.
- This new intersection expands the potential for additional oxide gold mineralization at depth, confirming the Company thesis that historical drilling left vast areas of mineralization untested.
- Importantly, this new interval averaged 91.5% cyanide soluble, suggesting amenability to low-cost heap leaching.
Drill results are pending for 4 other targets.
For a complete table of drill results from the current holes, please click here:
For a map of drill collars and traces for the current release, please click here:
Phase 2 drilling is planned to commence mid-June in order to investigate the scope of multiple targets. An updated Plan of Operations is pending that will open up access to the entire 12 square kilometre area of anomalous surface geochemistry and historic gold in drill holes for comprehensive drill testing.
HISTORICAL DATA COMPILATION RESULTS
- There have been 1,866 historical holes drilled, with an average depth of 93 metres. Most holes were vertical
- 19% of the historical holes bottomed in oxide gold mineralization
- 42% of the historical holes have unmined gold intercepts.
The presence of a large number of holes that bottomed in mineralization, as well as a number of areas of mineralization in the historic database that are open to depth, suggests that deeper angle drilling is appropriate in the future.
About Black Pine
The Black Pine property is part of the Great Basin and located in southeastern Idaho, and covers 31.7 square kilometres. The mineralized zone was extensively drilled in the immediate pit areas, with mining carried out by Pegasus Gold Corp. from 7 shallow pits over a 6-year period from 1992 to 1997 in a run of mine heap leach operation. The mining operation produced 435,000 ounces of gold from ore averaging 0.63 g/t Au, with a reported recovery of 65%.
Liberty Gold has data from 1,866 shallow holes, totaling 191,481 metres and has identified three broad target types for drill testing, including: 1) down-dip extensions of gold mineralization from mined pits under shallow cover; 2) unmined bodies of mineralization identified by previous operators; and 3) undrilled, high priority gold-in-soil anomalies.
For more details about the Black Pine Property, including location, geology & geochemistry maps and past production and target figures, please click here:
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. 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.
Black Pine 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.
Some of the data presented herein, includes legacy data developed by previous operators of the Black Pine property prior to the introduction of NI43-101. Historic drill intersections are reported as drilled thicknesses. True widths of the mineralized intervals are unknown. Production data sourced from Pegasus internal yearly statements on production and remaining Reserves and Mineralized material. Liberty Gold is providing this legacy data for informational purposes only, and gives no assurance as to its reliability and relevance to the Company’s current results and proposed exploration program at Black Pine. Liberty Gold has not completed any quality assurance program or applied quality control measures to the legacy data. Accordingly, the legacy data should not be relied upon.
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.
