The Livengood deposit is hosted by rocks of the Livengood Terrane, an east–west belt, approximately 150 mi (240 km) long, consisting of tectonically interleaved assemblages, which include: i) the Amy Creek assemblage, a sequence of latest Proterozoic and/or early Paleozoic basalt, mudstone, chert, dolomite, and limestone; ii) a Cambrian ophiolite sequence of mafic and ultramafic sea floor rocks thrust over the Amy Creek Assemblage, in turn overthrust by; iii) a sequence of Devonian clastic sedimentary, volcanic, and volcaniclastic rocks (Athey et al., 2004).

Gold mineralization is associated with disseminated arsenopyrite and pyrite in volcanic, sedimentary and intrusive rocks, and in quartz veins cutting the more competent lithologies, primarily volcanic rocks, sandstones, and to a lesser degree, ultramafic rocks. Mineralization appears to be contiguous over a map area approximately 2.5 km2; a 0.1 g/mt grade shell averages 920 ft (280 m) thick and drilling has not closed off the deposit at depth. The stronger zones of mineralization are associated with areas of more abundant dikes. South of the Lillian Fault individual mineralized envelopes are tabular and follow stratigraphic units, particularly the Devonian volcanics, or lie in envelopes that dip up to 45° to the south, mimicking the structural architecture and attitude of the diking. On the north side of the Lillian fault, mineralization is similar in style and orientation and hosted primarily in steeply dippi ........

The Livengood deposit will be mined using conventional open pit mining methods consisting of drilling, blasting, loading, and hauling with large-scale mining equipment. Vegetation, topsoil, and overburden will be stripped and stockpiled for future reclamation use. The ore and waste rock will be drilled and blasted with 32.8 ft (10 m) high benches and loaded into haul trucks with a fleet of diesel-powered hydraulic excavators and front-end wheel loaders.

During the preproduction phase of the Project, a total of 89 Mt (81 Mmt) of waste rock has been estimated to be required for the construction of certain infrastructure such as the tailings management facility (TMF) starter dike, mine haul roads, site access roads, and platforms for the processing facilities and other buildings. It has been assumed that all waste rock types will be acceptable as construction material except for overburden.

A starter pit, also referred to as Phase 1, was designed on the eastern side of the open pit, which targets the waste rock requirements and minimizes the amount of ore that would have to be stockpiled during preproduction. A trade-off study was carried out early in the Project, which evaluated a starter pit on the west side of the open pit. The western starter pit targeted an area that would expose ore quicker but was not used in the PFS due to the longer haul distances relative to the eastern starter pit. The Phase 1 starter pit contains 5.6 Mt (5.1 Mmt) of overburden, ........

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The Livengood process facilities will consist of a comminution circuit (one SAG and one ball mill) followed by a gravity concentration circuit. The tailings from the gravity concentration circuit will be fed to a CIL circuit. Gold will be recovered by an adsorption, desorption and recovery (ADR) circuit, where the final product will be doré. Process tailings will be thickened, treated to detoxify cyanide, and discharged to the tailings management facility (TMF). The gravity gold will be intensively leached from the gravity concentrate.

Gravity and Intensive Leaching
The Livengood gold ore contains significant amounts of free gold, which responds well to gravity concentration. The gravity circuit consists of two parallel lines composed of four Knelson concentrators each fed by a portion of the ball mill discharge. Based on testwork and simulations conducted by FLSmidth, the design gold recovery of the gravity circuit is estimated to be 30% for an average feed blend. A b ........