Liberty Metals: Hard-rock gold confirmed at Oko North

The four results above 1 g/t came from a grey quartz vein, sheared granite, a white quartz vein and a conglomerate. Gold spread across several rock types and mineralisation styles points to a broadly mineralised system rather than a single isolated vein.

Liberty chose not to sample material carrying visible gold, so the assays reflect the underlying hard rock rather than nuggets. Most early-stage explorers would sample the visible gold and lead with the number. Excluding it gives a cleaner reading of the system.

The best result, 2.32 g/t, came from an outcropping grey quartz vein: rock that is still in place, not transported. That is consistent with the gold in the creeks and workings being shed from a nearby hard-rock source.

These are reconnaissance samples from the first field campaign ever run on the Project. They were designed to establish whether the bedrock carries gold, and they have.

Samples that returned detectable gold sit a median of around 300 metres from a mapped shear. Samples that returned nothing sit around 630 metres away. All four results above 1 g/t lie within 630 metres of a mapped shear.

Of 16 samples taken more than 700 metres from any mapped shear, only three returned detectable gold, and the best of those was 0.23 g/t. The gold is not evenly spread; it is tied to structure.

The main shear zone follows the boundary between the granite in the north and the greenstone in the south. Sheared contacts between granite and greenstone are the classic host for orogenic gold across the Guiana Shield and the Birimian belts of West Africa.

Sampling targeted priority areas rather than a regular grid, so the pattern partly reflects where geologists chose to look. It is an encouraging relationship to test, not a proven control. The 5,000 sample soil grid will show whether it holds up when sampling is unbiased.

The Oko deposits next door are bulk-tonnage systems grading around 2 g/t. Systems of that kind rarely return spectacular surface samples everywhere. What they produce is widespread gold at modest grades across several rock types, which is the pattern these results show.

A single very high-grade sample from a narrow vein often signals a small, high-grade structure with limited tonnage. Moderate grades appearing repeatedly across different host rocks are a better indicator of a large mineralising system.

In deeply weathered tropical terrain, gold near surface is leached and redistributed. Surface rock chips are a poor guide to grades in fresh rock at depth, and low surface results do not rule out stronger grades below.

This program set out to establish whether gold is present in the hard rock at Oko North. Gold across four host types, concentrated near the shear, answers that question.

Oko West, the largest deposit in the district, was defined by a soil program after airborne magnetics, not by rock chips or by following the workings. Liberty’s 5,000 sample soil program applies the same method along the same trend.

At the Oko Main Zone, G2 drilled beneath historic pits and shafts along a deformation zone and defined a high-grade resource. Where workings sit on structure in this district, drilling beneath them has paid.

Fertility confirmed by rock chips, systematic soils underway, then trenching and maiden drill targets. That is the order in which the district’s discoveries were made.

Medium-scale permits in Guyana can only be held by Guyanese citizens and are issued in blocks of 150 to 1,200 acres, with prime ground largely closed to application. Liberty has consolidated 40 of them into approximately 180km².

The maiden systematic soil program is running across Oko North and Oko South, analysed in field using pXRF and DetectORE™. It will show whether the rock chip results form a coherent anomaly along the shear.

No sampling has yet been completed at Oko South. Liberty is preparing a maiden exploration program on the southern block, which covers the interpreted southern continuation of the Oko trend.

Rock chip and soil results will be combined to define and prioritise targets for Liberty’s first drilling campaign at Oko North, testing beneath the workings for the first time.