Geophysical Program At Jersey Valley Gold Property

VANCOUVER - Abacus Mining & Exploration Corporation reported that a program of ground IP geophysics is about to begin at its Jersey Valley gold property, within the Battle Mountain trend of north-central Nevada. The new high-resolution Time Domain Induced Polarization survey will consist of six lines of two kilometers each bracketing four historic lines of IP done by a previous operator in 2005. The historic IP has extensive, virtually untested anomalies, and limited past drilling shows that these are gold and silver bearing. The work is scheduled to commence near the end of this month and once complete, an initial program of drilling will be undertaken.

Jersey Valley is underlain by an uplifted range of sediments and intrusives to the east and an extensive basin covered by gravels to the west, separated by a prominent, brecciated range front fault. A distinctive sinter associated with hot springs activity is exposed out in the valley gravels. The previous operator completed a large-scale ground magnetic survey in the early 2000’s which extended well beyond the current property and then initiated a limited four-line northwest oriented IP survey over the valley gravels.

Abacus recently reprocessed the IP data, which very clearly shows two flat-lying anomalies marked by moderate to high charge-ability and low resistivity (see Company website). Both targets are open along strike to the northeast and southwest. The largest target is approximately 600 meters long by 500 meters wide. The Company doubled the claim size in July of 2020 in order to cover the southwest strike extent of these anomalies.

Past drilling was neither extensive enough, deep enough nor optimally placed to adequately test the system. Despite this, three historic diamond drill holes appear to have just grazed these two anomalies. All three holes contained >1% pyrite, occasional realgar and stibnite, and numerous additional gold-silver intercepts associated with elevated levels of arsenic, antimony and mercury.

The Company believes that the reprocessing has highlighted the fact that the best portions of the IP targets are essentially untested, although past drilling clearly indicates that they contain gold and silver, along with a suite of other elements typical of these precious metal bearing systems. The reprocessing also identified several high angle charge-ability anomalies that may be feeders to the extensive flat lying anomalies, along with structures parallel to and at high angles to the range front fault. Of note is the fact that structures appear to bracket both resistivity anomalies, possibly indicating sub-basins within the larger basin.