Latest Drill Results From The Valentine Gold Project

TORONTO - Marathon Gold Corporation reported additional drill results from recent exploration drilling at the Valentine Gold Project, central Newfoundland. These latest results represent fire assay data from fourteen drill holes located within the 1.5 kilometer long Berry Zone. Highlights include: VL-20-927 intersected 4.67 g/t Au over 34 meters including 24.14 g/t Au over 2 meters, 39.48 g/t Au over 1 meter and 35.71 g/t Au over 1 meter, and 5.91 g/t Au over 11 meters including 43.00 g/t over 1 meter and 12.70 g/t Au over 1 meter; VL-20-932 intersected 3.51 g/t Au over 13 meters including 31.79 g/t Au over 1 meter, and 8.67 g/t Au over 2 meters including 15.02 g/t Au over 1 meter, and 12.29 g/t Au over 1 meter, and 11.59 g/t Au over 1 meter; VL-20-926 intersected 2.53 g/t Au over 16 meters including 27.16 g/t Au over 1 meter, and 4.36 g/t Au over 4 meters including 11.99 g/t Au over 1 meter; VL-20-924 intersected 35.88 g/t Au over 2 meters; VL-20-925 intersected 0.97 g/t Au over 24 meters; and VL-20-930 intersected 5.59 g/t Au over 4 meters including 17.96 g/t Au over 1 meter, and 2.06 g/t Au over 7 meters.

Matt Manson, President and CEO, said, “The results represent additional fire assays from the Berry Zone completed as part of our 2020 exploration drill program. We continue to be encouraged by repeated long and high grade intercepts of shear-zone hosted gold mineralization in the style familiar to us from elsewhere at the Valentine Gold Project. Fire assay results from the final fifteen holes drilled in 2020, representing 2,875 meters, are expected to be received shortly. A first mineral resource estimate for Berry is expected toward the end of Q1 2021. Exploration drilling at the Valentine Gold Project will recommence with our Newfoundland based site team following the recent receipt of our 2021 exploration permits. A full overview of plans and objectives for the 2021 program will be released shortly. In the meantime, we will start where we left off at the Berry Zone, with further infill and delineation over the full 1.5 kilometer long interval of mineralization outlined from our 2020 drilling. Overall, an exploration program similar in scope to last year is planned, with approximately 50,000 meters of drilling supplemented by surface prospecting. This work will be conducted in parallel with the Project’s ongoing engineering and environmental assessment activities, which are based on the 12-year mine plan represented by the existing Marathon and Leprechaun Deposits.”

Gold mineralization at the Valentine Gold Project is contained predominantly within shallowly southwest dipping, en-echelon stacked Quartz-Tourmaline-Pyrite-Gold (QTP-Au) veins. At the Leprechaun and Marathon Deposits, as well as at the new Berry Zone, these QTP-Au veins form densely stacked and northwest plunging “Main Zone” envelopes within intrusive host rocks on the hanging wall (northwest) side of the Valentine Lake Shear Zone. The extent of mineralization appears related to the size and frequency of sheared mafic dykes which extend northeast-southwest within the hanging wall, parallel to the shear zone. Exploration drilling is generally undertaken in two orientations: down steeply towards the northwest at a high angle to the individual veins and down-plunge of the Main Zone stacking, or obliquely towards the southeast sub-parallel to the individual veins and across the strike of Main Zone mineralization.

The results released today are derived from ten drillholes located within or adjacent to the Berry infill drilling area between sections 13440E and 14080E, and an additional four drillholes in the Frozen Ear Pond Road area between sections 14720E and 14800E. Ten of the fourteen holes were oriented steeply down to the northwest testing for Main Zone type stacked QTP-Au mineralization close to the Valentine Lake Shear Zone (VL-20-924, 927, 928, 929, 930, 931, 934, 935, 936 and 937). Four holes were oriented steeply down to the northwest within hanging wall rocks but at a greater distance from the shear zone contact (VL-20-925, 926, 932 and 933). All fourteen drillholes returned “significant” drill intercepts of greater than 0.7 g/t Au (Table 1), and each drillhole returned additional intercepts with gold grades above the 0.3 g/t Au cut-off used in the January 2020 Mineral Resource Estimate for the Project.