Sonoro Gold To Evaluate Viability Of A 20,000 Tpd Heap Leach Operation

VANCOUVER - Sonoro Gold Corp. reported very favorable results from its current step-out and infill drilling programs. The current programs have demonstrated a material expansion of several mineralized zones, most notably at Japoneses, Buena Suerte, Veta de Oro, El Rincon and El Colorado. Based on these results, the Company is revising the parameters for a planned Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) to assess the viability of Heap Leach Mining Operation (HLMO) by increasing the target conceptual capacity from 8,000 tonnes per day (tpd) to 20,000 tpd.

As a key component of fast-tracking the proposed Cerro Caliche mine development, Sonoro contracted D.E.N.M. Engineering Ltd. to prepare a NI 43-101 compliant PEA and Micon International Limited to prepare an NI 43-101 compliant updated resource estimate, based on all drill results up until December 15, 2020. The realization of the Company’s goal of commencing gold production by December 2021 remains dependent on several material conditions, most notably the satisfactory completion of the current metallurgical testing, a favorable PEA report, securing required environmental permitting and securing project financing.

The following results from the current drilling program at El Colorado: SCD-008 intercepted 11.7 m averaging 0.92 g/t Au, including 4.55 m averaging 1.84 g/t Au; SCD-016 intercepted 11.25 m averaging 1.08 g/t Au including 1 m averaging 2.88 g/t Au; SCD-023 intercepted 8.45 m averaging 1.4 g/t Au, including 1.85 m averaging 4.76 g/t Au; and SCD-024 intercepted 5.7 m averaging 1.25 g/t Au, including 0.9 m averaging 6.22 g/t Au. Assays of four additional core holes at El Colorado are pending and will be reported in due course.

The El Colorado zone is located along an extensively mineralized east-west trending ridge in the southwestern part of the Cerro Caliche property. Drilling to date has outlined a gold mineralized zone approximately 300 meters long from north to south and 200 meters wide, which remains open to the northwest and southeast.

Core drilling has been suspended until the New Year and is expected to recommence in January. A total of 24 HQ-sized holes were completed and assays for 11 of these holes are pending. An additional 11 PQ-sized core holes were drilled in the early part of the core drilling program specifically to supply mineralized material for metallurgical testing, essential to advance the Company’s plans to fast-track a proposed mine development program with a goal to achieve gold production by the end of 2021.

At the Japoneses Zone, three core holes, SCD-001, SCD-002 and SCD-003, were completed to test for potential deeper extensions of the zone’s shallow epithermal mineralization. The targeted areas were about 200 meters lower than the zone’s drilled extent. The three 45-degree holes ranged from 370 to over 400 meters in length. SCD-001 intercepted 8 meters averaging 0.45 g/t Au beginning at 50.95 meters depth. SCD-OO2 encountered a wider interval of 21 meters averaging 0.41 g/t Au at 24.2 meters depth. These two reported intervals are in the upper part of the drill holes near the drill collars and they are part of the Chinos NW zone that extends the zone southeasterly by approximately 40 meters. SCD-003, which was collared at the northeastern-most extent of the Japoneses zone, was similar in trajectory and length to SCD-001 and SCD-002 and targeted conceptual deep high-grade gold vein systems which may have supplied the Japoneses shallow oxide gold mineralization. SCD-003 returned several narrow intervals of mineralization ranging from 0.212 to 0.978 g/t Au.

The additional holes at the El Colorado zone have added to an already intensely mineralized zone, while drilling results in other known mineralized zones have allowed us to not only refine the epithermal model, but also importantly, where to search for future high-grade targets. These results have indicated that several of the initial targets, such as those previously reported at the Sultan zone near the eastern boundary of the property, were below the previously projected boiling zone in the epithermal system. Therefore, as the location of the ideal boiling zone has been shown to be at higher elevations, priority is now being given to already identified and potential high-grade targets, which are at higher elevations on Cerro Caliche. As these targets are much closer and, in some cases, adjacent to Cerro Caliche’s shallow gold mineralization, the higher grade would form part of an expanded near-surface resource estimate.

These additional results will enable Sonoro to further refine and develop its plans to test additional high-grade targets located at the higher elevations, while concurrently expanding the mineralized zones. Priority targets for the high-grade drilling program, which is scheduled to continue at least until April 2021, are at the Cerro Caliche peak, Buena Suerte, Cabeza Blanca north, in addition to El Colorado.

Melvin Herdrick, Vice President Exploration, said, “We are happy to conclude the year with strong results from the Cerro Caliche drill program enabling us to evaluate the possibility of a potentially larger mine operation than previously discussed. The latest results at El Colorado show it to be a well-mineralized block with numerous wide veins and veinlet zones all shown as a network, including two blind vein zones that may help define the structural setting of the geometry of the mineralization at Cerro Caliche. I am very optimistic with the potential for the El Colorado mineralized zone and how it could ultimately add to and better define Cerro Caliche’s planned resource estimate.”

In the Abel Vein zone located in the eastern part of the property, a scout exploratory core drill hole, SCD017, was completed. This hole cut the vein structural zone with narrow intercepts of 0.3 to 0.33 g/t Au that are not considered significant. The Abel zone has similar geochemistry to the Sultan zone and, like the Sultan zone, is interpreted to be below the Cerro Caliche epithermal system’s ideal boiling zone.

Drill samples are collected with an airstream cyclone and passed into a splitter that divides each sample into quarters. The quartered samples are then bagged and sealed with identification. The sample group has blanks, standards and duplicates inserted into the sample stream.

Cerro Caliche is located 45 kilometers east southeast of Magdalena de Kino in the Cucurpe-Sonora Mega-district of Sonora, Mexico. Multiple historic underground mines were developed in the concession including Cabeza Blanca, Los Cuervos, Japoneses, Las Abejas, Boluditos, El Colorado, Veta de Oro and Espanola. Mineralization types of the Cucurpe-Sonora Mega-district include variants of epithermal low sulfidation veins and related mineralized dikes and associated volcanic domes. Local altered felsic dikes cut the mineralized meta-sedimentary rock units and may be associated with mineralization both in the dikes and meta-sedimentary rocks.

Host rocks include Jurassic-Cretaceous meta-sedimentary rock units including argillite, shale, quartzite, limestone, quartz pebble conglomerate and andesite. Younger intrusive rock consisting of medium coarse-grained granodiorite-granite is present in the westerly parts of the concessions near the historic Cabeza Blanca Mine. It is apparent that veining cuts and pervasively alters the intrusive stock. Rhyolite occurs in irregular bodies distributed in higher elevations in the northerly part of the concession, including the Rincon area, where it occurs as flows, sills, dikes and rhyolite domes. Part of the rhyolite is mineralized and appears to be related to epithermal gold mineralization throughout the property.