“The gold-bearing outcrops we have at Red Rock Canyon are consistent with a very large mineral-bearing hydrothermal system,” says Liberty Star’s Brett Gross.
“It’s exposed at the surface and multiple outcrops exhibit gold mineralisation.”
And it’s hard to disagree with the notion that this gold looks like low-hanging fruit.
Especially since this ground has been explored before and, although the historic core isn’t available any more, the data certainly is.
That means round one of drilling for Liberty Star is a simple question of twinning old holes, verifying data and working up a resource that way.
“There were up to 45 holes drilled in the 1980s and 1990s,” says Gross.
“And there was a concentrated 15 hole drill pattern in our area of focus.”
One historic result returned in excess of two ounces of gold per tonne, with the range running from between one part per million (1 gram) gold and 67 parts per million (67 grams).
There are the extensive gold showings at and near surface that point towards the possibility of a deposit of the order of one or two million ounces.
Which is why Gross can say with confidence that Red Rock is “much more de-risked than a greenfield site.”
First off, though, Liberty Star has to make certain of as much as it can in the way of applying modern techniques.
Accordingly, an induced polarisation survey will be shot across the area of focus before drilling gets underway. After that, the latest in artificial intelligence technology will be let loose on the results to analyse how they correlate with the old drilling data.
“We’re very confident that we’ll be able to delineate an extensive system,” says Gross.
Along the way, of course, the company will also pick up clues as to the broader geological context and the possibility of a common heat source for the porphyry. Nevertheless, in these initial stages, the focus will remain on working up the gold.
Drilling work will run in stages.
The initial stage will work off the IP and the old historic data, and is likely to cost in the region of US$500,000-US$750,000.
After the information from that drill campaign has been collated, plans get more ambitious. Gross, in due course, would like to expand the project in a second phase of drilling and to spend upwards of US$2.5mln, followed in turn by a property-wide program tentatively budgeted to exceed $15mln.
As data is developed sufficiently to take the project on towards a preliminary economic assessment, the evolving ore body delineation will progress to a pre-feasibility study and, ultimately, the final feasibility study will follow after that.
Will Liberty Star do all this on its own?
Possibly, but perhaps not.
Gross is open to the idea of bringing in partners once the value on offer becomes clearer. And this isn’t just idle thinking. Several major mining companies have already looked the area over, and a few years ago Anglo American began an aggressive staking campaign that eventually led Liberty Star to expand its own landholding in order to avoid becoming surrounded.
Why is Anglo in the area?
Because it’s not just gold that’s been identified in the neighbourhood of Red Rock Canyon. There’s also copper, and potentially lots of it.
Early exploration data shows that the scale of what lies at depth at Red Rock Canyon might be similar to other world class deposits near the project such as Bisbee to the south, Morenci, Miami and Ray to the north and other prospective deposits such as Rosemont to the west.
That could make it one of the largest copper or copper-gold projects in the world.
But one thing at a time.
That second option is years, if not decades off.
And the gold is much closer in.
So the focus for now is on proving up the gold.
With access to road and power now secure, the company is now in a more solid position to stand on its own, if needed.