Columbus Prepares to Resume Drilling at Eastside

VANCOUVER, BC - Columbus Gold Corporation plans to commence a follow-up drilling program at its Eastside gold project in Nevada on February 25th, 2016. Two drill rigs, a rotary rig and a core rig will be used and the preparation of access roads and drill sites is underway.

The planned program includes 16,000 feet of core drilling in 16 to 18 core holes, and 32,000 feet of reverse circulation, rotary drilling. Core holes will be pre-drilled by rotary drilling to 600 feet and then entered with the core rig to complete the holes. Some exploration holes and several infill holes will be completed by rotary drilling alone.

The goals of the 2016 drilling program are to test the known gold/silver mineralization at greater depths than drilled so far. Sixteen of the deeper Eastside holes have "bottomed" in gold/silver mineralization. Geological logging of drill holes indicates the hydrothermal alteration style in deeper holes is getting more intense and likely indicates higher temperatures of formation. Replacement silicification is changing-from chalcedonic silica replacement near the surface to replacement by coarser, crystalline quartz at depth. Veining in stockwork zones at depth has more banding, and much coarser quartz crystals, more common quartz after calcite textures, and more adularia than near-surface veins. Adularia is much more common as a replacement and in veins at greater depths. Surficial clay alteration (dominantly kaolinite) is also changing to illite alteration with depth. There are essentially no silver values in surface sampling at Eastside, but silver appears at depth in drill holes. Thicknesses of silver appear to be increasing at depth (24.4 m of 37.6 g/t silver in ES-39) with occasional higher grade silver as well (3 m of 203 g/t silver in ES-40). The maximum depth drilled in 2015 was 1,250 feet (379 m). Core drilling in 2016 will test to depths of 1,600 feet (488 m), or more if the holes remain strongly mineralized near their bottoms.

Drilling also to test a surface geochemical anomaly (described as Target 6) to the north of the area drilled to date. The strong geochemical anomaly in arsenic and antimony continues directly north of the gold surface anomaly. Twenty-two surface samples define an arsenic (200 to 18,810 ppm As) and antimony (13 to 330 ppm Sb) anomaly that is about 600 meters long and 100 to 200 meters wide as it extends directly north from the gold surface anomaly and to test gaps in previous drilling, where holes are as much as 328 to 492 feet (100 to150 m) apart.

In addition, permitting is in progress to drill test Target 5, which is located 4.5 miles (7 km) south of the Original Target area. Target 5 is about 1 km in diameter, and its geology is identical to the Original Target, consisting of a rhyolite flow dome complex displaying strong hydrothermal alteration. Surface sampling at Target 5 identified a gold-bearing outcrop about 200 meters long and 10 meters wide, where four surface samples ranged from 0.4 g/t to 1.08 g/t gold.