The area of the Merian Project Area lies within Lower Proterozoic-aged rocks of the Guiana Shield (Figure 5-9). The bedrock geology at the Merian Right of Exploitation consists of folded and faulted, inter-bedded graywackes, mudstones, siltstones, sandstones and minor volcaniclastics of the Armina Formation of Lower Proterozoic age (Surgold 2010). This area has been subjected to weak to moderate, low-grade, greenschist facies regional metamorphism. No known intrusive rocks have been identified on the property to date.

Due to prolonged chemical weathering from the surrounding semi-arid, tropical paleo-climate, the laterite/saprolite profile extends on average 80 to 100 meters below the surface. The upper lateritic horizon is generally 2 to 3 meters thick covered by 0.3 to 0.5 meters of soil. Sedimentary rocks of the Armina Formation in the saprolite zone are weathered and oxidized to a mixture of clays such as kaolinite and iron oxides. Primary rock texture is fairly well preserved, and quartz and quartz veining remain intact (Surgold, 2010).

A transition zone of partially-weathered rock, referred to as saprock, occurs below the saprolite. Highly irregular, the transition zone ranges in thickness from 0 to 20 meters. Primary rock fabric such as bedding and folding, as well as partially oxidized pyrite can be readily seen in this zone (Surgold, 2010).

Un-oxidized rock underlies the transition zone. The resource gold mineralization at Merian occurs within saprolite, saprock or un-oxidized rock. The majority of the known deposits and prospects show evidence of recent and historical mining from the laterite and alluvial sources.

A north-west trending, south-east plunging antiform (the Merian Antiform) dominates the structural geology of the property (Surgold, 2010). Second-order folds occur in both limbs of the antifold. These second-order folds generally have a north-west axial trace and wave lengths between a few centimeters to several hundreds of meters.

Northwest-striking moderate-to-steeply dipping faults and shear zones occur along the axial trace and limbs of the Merian Antiform (Surgold, 2010). Gold mineralization in this area is associated with quartz veins, stockworks, and breccias along the north west trending structural zones. Additionally, a lowangle set of veins occurs throughout the property. It is likely that these veins occupy low-angle imbricate thrust fault zones and may be cross cut by mineralized quartz breccia bodies. North-east and east-west trending faults cross-cut the Merian antiform and may bound or localize mineralization along the north-west striking structural fabric (Surgold, 2010).

Merian reached commercial production in October 2016 and the operation currently includes the Merian 2 open pit and the Maraba open pit. The Maraba pit was added in January 2018 and a third pit is expected to be added in 2021.

Merian’s available mining fleet consists of two shovels, four mining excavators and thirty-five 150-tonne haul trucks.

Merian includes processing facilities that utilize a conventional gold processing process plant, consisting of comminution plant, including gravity and cyanide leach processes, with recovery by carbon-in-leach, elution, electro-winning and induction furnace smelting to produce a gold doré product. It has a nameplate capacity of 12 million tonnes per year, reducing later to 10 million tonnes per year when the mill feed will be predominantly from fresh rock.