Ruby Hill Expanded Drill Program Has Commenced

RENO, NV - i-80 Gold Corp announced that the expanded 2023 drill program is now underway at the Ruby Hill Property located in Eureka County, Nevada. Due to the substantial success of the 2022 drill campaign, that included multiple new discoveries, additional rigs have been added such that a total of six core and RC drill rigs have been, or are being, activated. The primary targets of the first part of the program will be the Hilltop Corridor that includes polymetallic Carbonate Replacement Deposit (CRD) mineralization including the Upper Hilltop Zone, skarn mineralization in the Blackjack and Hilltop Corridor targets, and multiple untested geophysical anomalies.

"Outstanding results and new discoveries at Ruby Hill confirm the potential to grow resources in multiple gold and poly-metallic target areas", stated Ewan Downie, CEO. "We are currently assessing the potential for a restart of the processing infrastructure at Ruby Hill for either gold or base metal mineralization including the economic opportunity, timing for start-up and the low capital requirement. As such, we are focusing our drill program to help us better understand what the priority should be."

The Hilltop Corridor is a 1.5 km long, alluvial covered, trend immediately south of the Archimedes pit believed to be host to multiple feeder fault structures. This trend is largely untested by previous drilling owing to the alluvial cover.  The discovery of the Upper and Lower Hilltop Zones in the second half of 2022 combined with hole iRH22-61, the first hole drilled to test for mineralization to the east of Hilltop and south of the Blackjack Deposit, confirm the Company geological team's model that the Ruby Hill Property could be host to multiple types of mineralization and several large-scale deposits.

The Upper Hilltop Zone is a near-surface, high-grade, CRD zone that was discovered on the south side of the Archimedes pit that was first drilled in August of 2022. Previously results from drilling in the Upper Hilltop Zone returned high-grade intercepts include. Additional results from the 2022 program testing both the Upper and Lower Hilltop Zones remain pending and will be released upon receipt.

The Blackjack deposit, discovered by previous operators, has high-grade polymetallic (zinc, lead, gold and silver) skarn mineralization located immediately below the Archimedes pit, was intersected in numerous holes but was never brought to resource status. Two directional core rigs are currently drilling this target so that i-80 can complete a NI43-101 compliant resource for the deposit and additional step-out drilling will also be completed.

In late 2022, hole iRH22-61 was drilled east from one of the Upper Hilltop drill platforms to test for skarn mineralization, similar to the Blackjack deposit, proximal to the Graveyard Flats intrusive complex. Hole iRH22-61 intersected high-grade mineralization approximately 450 meters to the south of Blackjack, assaying an impressive 12.3 % Zn over 39.8 m.  This target area remains wide open for expansion and is currently being tested by additional drilling.

Geophysical surveys have been completed over the Hilltop Corridor area and have identified several highly prospective anomalies that are believed to have the potential to represent additional massive sulfide targets.  Several of these anomalies will be the tested in the 2023 drilling program.