First Summer Drill Results From Berry Zone at the Valentine Gold Project

TORONTO - Marathon Gold Corporation reported drill results from recent exploration drilling at the Valentine Gold Project, central Newfoundland. These latest results represent fire assay data from the initial ten drill holes completed in the new Berry Zone following the restart of drilling operations in June.

Highlights include: VL-20-823 intersected 3.33 g/t Au over 120.0 meters, including 11.83 g/t Au over 10.0 meters, 13.03 g/t Au over 2.0 meters and 4.97 g/t Au over 28.0 meters; VL-20-824 intersected 3.37 g/t Au over 36.0 meters, including 36.14 g/t Au over 1 meter, and 5.69 g/t Au over 7.0 meters, and 51.52 g/t Au over 4 meters including 203.65 g/t Au over 1 meter, and 37.56 g/t Au over 1 meter; VL-20-822 intersected 2.33 g/t Au over 32.0 meters including 10.49 g/t Au over 4.0 meters, and 7.84 g/t Au over 5.0 meters including 29.20 g/t Au over 1 meter; & VL-20-821 intersected 2.12 g/t Au over 13.0 meters.

The ten drill holes reported represent step out drilling to both the southwest and northeast of the new Berry Zone, located within the six-kilometer long Sprite Corridor between the Leprechaun and Marathon Deposits. Previous drilling in this area has outlined “Main Zone”-style mineralization characteristic of the Valentine Gold Project, with shallowly southwest dipping, en-echelon stacked Quartz-Tourmaline-Pyrite-Gold (“QTP-Au”) veins contained within steeply northwest plunging envelopes in the hanging-wall of the Valentine Lake Shear Zone. Drill Holes VL-20-823 and 824 returned exceptional results at Sections 13690E and 13720E respectively drilling down-plunge of the stacking and confirming the extension of the Berry Zone to the northeast.

Matt Manson, President & CEO, said, “Our 2020 exploration drill program is focussed on new discovery, with broad step out drilling into areas previously untested. We are particularly encouraged by these continued good results. When we returned to drilling in early June, we picked up where we had left off with a 32,000-meter drill plan extending northeastwards from the Berry Zone towards the Frozen Ear Pond Road area and ultimately to the limit of the Marathon Deposit, which remains open on the southwestern side. This is a total strike length of approximately three kilometers of high exploration potential. Moving along this trend systematically will remain the goal of our exploration efforts in 2020, with results reported as they become available.”

The latest ten drill holes at the Berry Zone represent oblique drilling across the Main Zone envelope of QTP-Au veining towards the southeast (such as VL-20-819, 820, 821, 822, 825, 826 and 827) or steeply down through the stacking of the Main Zone envelope towards the northwest (such as VL-20-818, 823 and 824). Nine of the ten holes returned “significant” drill intersections of greater than 0.7 g/t Au, and each of the ten drill holes returned drill intersections with gold grades above the 0.3 g/t Au cut-off used in the January 2020 Mineral Resource Estimate for the Project.

The scale of QTP-Au mineralization developed in the Berry Zone appears closely controlled by the size and frequency of sheared mafic dykes, which extend NE-SW parallel to the Valentine Lake Shear Zone. Main Zone mineralization is contained within a 30-100m wide interval between dykes intruding quartz-eye porphyry on the hanging-wall (NW) side and the main shear zone contact with sedimentary rocks on the foot-wall (SE) side. This mineralized envelope extends from surface to a depth of over 250 meters, where it remains open. Two drill holes (VL-20-819 and 820) on Sections 13340E and 13290E respectively returned only intermittent or low-grade mineralization. QTP-Au mineralization is developed over a broad interval in the area of Sections 13400E and 13600E, and then appears to narrow to the northeast where it becomes concentrated between the contact and a particularly large mafic dyke in the area of Section 13800E. This implies a drill confirmed strike extent for the Berry Zone of approximately 450 meters based on current data to date.