Technical Overview of the O’Brien Gold Property

Focus Xplore PLC (AIM: FOX) is pleased to provide a technical overview and ongoing Phase 1 exploration programme for the O’Brien Property (‘O’Brien Property’ or the ‘Property’). The Property covers approximately 2,100 hectares (21 km²) in central Newfoundland, Canada, and forms part of the Group’s acquisition of five Canadian gold projects announced on 6 October 2026

Key Highlights

Location and Access: A single licence (041064M; 84 claims; ~2,100 ha) in central Newfoundland, located approximately 28km west of Gander and about 100 km northeast of the Valentine Lake gold deposit.

Untested South Eastern Target: Coincident geophysical anomalies comprising a magnetic low about 2 km wide with a linear electromagnetic (“EM”) conductor, positioned on-trend of nearby gold occurrences. Comprises a conceptual, but potentially large target.

Prospective Gold Setting: The 13.5 km Mt Peyton Trend runs along the western side of the Property. The Mt Peyton Intrusive Suite is interpreted as the heat and fluid source for multiple intrusion-related gold–antimony–arsenic occurrences nearby. The Slip showing, about 0.9 km north-north-west of the Property boundary, has returned historical assays of up to 28.6 g/t Au.

Immediate Phase 1 Programme: An SGH (Spatiotemporal Geochemical Hydrocarbon) soil survey is underway to cover the South Eastern Target. SGH is designed to detect buried targets where glacial cover and wetlands limit conventional soil sampling, this programme started on the 31st of October.

DETAILS

Target Areas

The O’Brien Property has three main target areas;

The South Eastern Target Area - associated with the magnetic low, and elevated conductivity coincident with significant faulting. Additionally, A magnetic high, which may represent to a diorite intrusion – which elsewhere is related to gold mineralisation- is within the local area,

Central Target Area – where second and third-order faulting is coincident with elevated arsenic in lake sediments

North-Western Target Area – Associated with the continuation and parallel structures to the Mt Peyton Trend.

The ,location of these target areas, alongside the magnetic geophysical data from the property is shown in Figure 1. The initial Phase 1 fieldwork is planned to examine the South Eastern Target Area, and if sufficient time is available, the Central Target Area.

Regional geological setting

The O’Brien Property lies in central Newfoundland, within the Exploits Subzone of the Dunnage Zone of the northern Appalachian orogen. The Dunnage Zone preserves arc, back-arc and oceanic remnants of the Iapetus Ocean and is divided by the Red Indian Line into the Notre Dame and Exploits subzones; the Exploits Subzone is bounded to the east by the Gander River Ultramafic Belt, which marks the boundary with the Gander Zone1 2. Closure of the Exploits basins in the Silurian Salinic orogeny3 was followed by gabbro–granite magmatism, represented by the Mt Peyton Intrusive Suite, dated to 422 to 4184 million years ago (Ma), Epigenetic gold is widespread in the eastern and central Dunnage Zone5, including gold-mineralised gabbro along the Dog Bay Line–Appleton fault zone corridor, which extends for at least 75 km6.

Geology of the Property and Nearby Areas

The Property (Licence 041064M; 84 claims, approximately 2,100 Ha) lies on the north-eastern side of the Mt Peyton Intrusive Suite, which comprises gabbro–diorite, monzogranite and granodiorite4.

Bedrock exposure in the area is poor, with till and bog cover7, and the mapped geology of the Property is largely unknown, however, it is inferred from the regional geology as being Early-Late Silurian of the Botwood Group8, composed of greywacke, siltstone and slate and sandstones9. The magnetic highs in the geophysical data are interpreted as possibly reflecting mafic intrusive rocks of the Mt Peyton Intrusive Suite10.

Gold mineralisation in the local area, and along the faulting to the north of the Mt Peyton Intrusive Suite, is commonly associated with the north-east trending faulting11. The Slip showing which returned historical assays of up to 28.6 g/t Au, is located about 0.9 km north-north-west of the Property boundary, on the north-north-western end of the 13.5 km Mt Peyton trend, which is anomalous in gold, silver, arsenic and antimony. The Slip showing is interpreted as late-stage, intrusion-related mineralisation with a granitic dyke cutting a gabbro-diorite intrusive. At the Hurricane–Corsair prospects, 3.5km to the southwest of the Property, gold occurs in narrow quartz–siderite veins within pyrite–arsenopyrite–sericite–siderite–silica alteration envelopes in quartz diorite; this is interpreted as fracture-controlled, vein-style mineralisation.

Property Geophysics

The Property has received multiple modern geophysical surveys covering around 90% of the licence area, including a VTEM (Versatile Time-Domain Electromagnetic) survey in 2021 and Government-assimilated regional magnetic surveys12, including high-resolution data in the south-east of the Property.

Due to the cover on the Property, the Sout Eastern Target is based on geophysics (see Figure 1). The target is centred on a north-north-east-trending lineament (orientated circa 022°), interpreted from regional magnetic data, which is crossed by north-north-west-trending lineaments (335°) sub-parallel to the Mt Peyton Trend. A linear electromagnetic (EM) conductive anomaly coincides with the north-north-east lineament. A north-north-west-elongate magnetic high near the intersection with the EM anomaly may reflect a gabbro–diorite intrusion of the Mt Peyton Intrusive Suite, a dyke or sill, or magnetite-bearing alteration.

Locally, gold mineralisation is associated with gabbro–diorite intrusions, including Neyles Brook7, Hurricane–Corsair and, directly along strike of the South Eastern Target; the Slip showing4. The geological setting of the South Eastern Target, including the magnetic low that may be related to widespread demagnetisation associated with hydrothermal fluids, and the electromagnetic response, which may be related to sulphides, warrants further testing. This demagnetised/conductive zone lies at the apex of a significant fault structure, close to a major intrusion, providing a geologically dilated and structurally complex environment where late-stage orogenic gold mineralisation can occur.

The South Eastern Target lies at the interpreted intersection of a north-north-east lineament, which coincides with the EM anomaly, and north-north-west lineaments, about 1.5 km east of the mapped margin of the Mt Peyton suite ; it also coincides with a magnetic low about 2 km wide that is significantly weaker that the surrounding geology. The low may reflect hydrothermal alteration of a magnetic protolith, a change in lithology, or both.

These orientations are similar to regional mineralisation, gold mineralisation at Hurricane–Corsair and Neyles Brook; as well as the wider Mt Peyton Trend and the monzogranite dykes at the Slip. Where structures of different orientations meet, complex fault structures can be developed, where fluid flow can be focused and space can open (“dilation”); some gold deposits are localised in such settings14. The Mt Peyton Intrusive Suite is interpreted as the source of heat and fluids for multiple c. 422–418 Ma intrusion-related gold occurrences nearby4. If the magnetic low reflects hydrothermal alteration of a magnetic protolith, it would indicate past fluid flow through this setting; this has not been tested, and offers a conceptual, but high-priority target.

Figure 1: O'Brien Property - Magnetics, Inferred Structural Geology and Target Areas

Previous Exploration

Gold exploration in the area followed the Geological Survey of Newfoundland and Labrador’s regional lake-sediment geochemical survey, which was carried out in 198015, and reanalysed for gold in 198816. Noranda followed up arsenopyrite-bearing quartz-vein float found during regional prospecting with trenching, geophysical surveys and diamond drilling in 1989–91, defining the Mt Peyton Trend, a corridor of anomalous gold, silver, arsenic and antimony that runs along the western side of the Property17. Between 1999 and 2003, Black Bart Prospecting, Quest and Rubicon Minerals extended the trend Mt Peyton Trend using arsenic in lake sediments and prospecting, which resulted in the identification of the SS showing about 0.2 km north-north-west of the Property and the Quinlan and Cyril showings about 0.9–1.4 km to the south-west18.

Two ground programmes are documented on the Property. In 2002–03, Rubicon Minerals prospected and sampled the north of the Property, where roughly two-thirds of a 40-sample soil line from that programme falls within the Property, and all soils returned 5 ppb Au or less17. Gordon Lawrence sampled soils, stream sediments and rocks on the Newex1 licence (020780, ten claims), which overlaps the centre of the Property; he reported no earlier ground work on those claims19. Results from this programme returned up to 7,080 ppm arsenic and 23.9 ppm antimony, with gold below 2 ppb except for one sample at 48 ppb.

The Property is covered by, and the data is available for, a helicopter-borne magnetic and electromagnetic survey flown for Rubicon Minerals; it is also covered by regional magnetic compilations20, and about 89% of it by magnetic and time-domain EM data from Exploits Discovery’s work in the early 2020s21.

There has been no recorded sampling directly over the eastern target, and no drilling, rock sampling or systematic geochemistry completed on the Property to date.

Proposed Phase 1 Exploration Programme

The South Eastern Target Area of the O’Brien Property, where structural geology is inferred to be most promising, is largely covered by surficial materials with little exposure; conventional soil sampling is unlikely to provide useful or scientifically robust information. Locally, swampy areas are reported to be underlain by glacial clay, which is expected to impede upward ion movement from potentially buried deposits (which soil sampling aims to detect). In addition, wetland conditions (variable pH, metal binding by organic matter, and sediment and groundwater input at bog margins) commonly produce geochemical anomalies unrelated to bedrock, making results from swampy ground difficult to interpret22. Swampy areas were therefore excluded from sampling.

To address these limitations, we will complete Spatiotemporal Geochemical Hydrocarbon (SGH; formerly Soil Gas Hydrocarbon) analysis over the target area. SGH is a proprietary method developed by Activation Laboratories Ltd. (Actlabs), Ancaster, Ontario. Rather than extracting metal ions, it uses a very weak leach to release hydrocarbon compounds adsorbed on soil particles, and measures 162 compounds in the C5–C17 range by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry at parts-per-trillion levels23. Results are interpreted against signature templates that Actlabs has developed for gold and other deposit types24. SGH is less affected by changes in sample medium than selective leach methods, and responses have been documented over buried targets in both organic and mineral soils22. In British Columbia, SGH responses have been reported over the Tommy and Ted epithermal Au–Ag veins at the 3Ts prospect25, and over the Kwanika Cu–Au porphyry, where SGH outlined a reduced zone above mineralisation buried by up to 40 m of glaciofluvial sediment26.

REFERENCES