K2 Gold samples 5.14 g/t gold over 11.6 metres at Mojave Project

K2 Gold Corp. [KTO-TSXV; KTGDF-OTCQB; 23K-FSE] reported additional exploration results from its Mojave Project located in Inyo County, southern California. Results are from the Soda Ridge and Stega targets on the western side of the property (Western Target Area) and comprise soil and rock chip sampling.

Highlights include:

Stega – 5.14 g/t gold over 11.6 metres from rock chip sampling.

Soda Ridge – Rock samples up to 3.28 g/t gold, up to 909 g/t silver, up to 2% lead, and up to 3.9% copper.

Soda Ridge – Significant, 600m x 700m, open, gold-in-soil anomaly with 51 samples returning >100 ppb Au

“These preliminary results from the Western Target Area highlight the mineral potential of the entire Mojave property not just for gold, but base metals as well,” stated Stephen Swatton, President and CEO of K2.  “We have now identified twelve gold and base metal targets on the 5,800-hectare property and look forward to drilling the Eastern Target Area with a helicopter supported program in the near future.”

The main focus of exploration by BHP and Newmont in the 1980s and 1990s was on the gold potential of the eastern side of the Mojave property (Eastern Target Area). This news release reports K2’s exploration results from the Western Target Area, which is separated from the Eastern Target Area by several kilometres of predominantly colluvium-filled valley floor.

Exploration results from the Western Target underline the importance of reviewing the potential of the property in its entirety.  K2’s current geologic interpretation implies a distinct geologic relationship exists between the predominantly base metal-rich west and the gold-rich east.  The distinct zonation of base metals in the west to gold in east strongly suggests the possibility of intrusive related mineralization within a highly tectonized regime akin to the multi-million ounce Beatty gold district 150km to the northeast in Nevada.

Unlike Beatty, Mojave has exposed more of the deeper base metal rich rock units therefore the company has also been keen to follow up on the reported porphyry copper potential as mentioned in historical documents from BHP (BHP Minerals internal report, Reidel 2014).

Western Target Area

Numerous historic mines, prospect pits, shafts, and adits occur in the general area dating back to the mid 1800s – 1950s.  Within the property boundary the Pete Smith adits exploited narrow lead-zinc veins in the 1920s and the Keeler mine produced gold-silver-lead-copper from a series of narrow veins (production grade and tonnage unknown) and was the most recently operating precious/base metal mine in the district and closed in 1961.

Stega

The Stega target covers approximately 3km x 2km in the southwestern portion of Mojave and is located 3km west of the Newmont Zone, with approximately 1,600 historic rock grab and chip samples.  To date, exploration by K2 Gold has focused on the Au-As trend and a full assessment of the target area, including the Cu and Ag-Pb-Zn trends is ongoing.

The initial sampling program by K2 focused on the northeastern portion of the Stega target and was following up on historic rock chip samples in the area up to 10.8 g/t Au.  A total of 115 samples were collected over 11 lines of continuous rock chip sampling from outcrop and covered a 415m east-west area.  Individual assays for the samples ranged from trace to 12.68 g/t Au.  An additional 36 prospecting grab samples were collected from the area, with samples returning from trace to 0.61 g/t Au.  Highlights from the chip/channel sampling are presented in Table 1, below.

All three zones are open along strike in both directions and extend a minimum of 750m south based on historic rock sampling and recent WorldView-3 alteration imagery.

Soda Ridge

The Soda Ridge target is located in the northwest corner of Mojave, approximately 4.5km NW of Stega. The target occurs immediately south of the historic Morning Star Mine which produced an estimated 4,130 tons averaging 10.3 g/t gold, 1,062 g/t silver, 5% lead, 1% copper, and 3% zinc  Historic exploration on the target by Mobil-Asamera included 34 drill holes in the Soda Ridge-Morningstar area. Historic drilling included hole SR-09 with 5.21 g/t gold and hole SR-15 with 5.73 g/t gold over 4.57 metres.

A total of 138 grid soil samples were collected on the Soda Ridge target. Soil sampling returned significantly anomalous gold in soils over a 600m x 700m area that is open to the north, south, and west. Individual samples ranged from trace to 1,040 ppb gold.  Overall, 51 of the samples returned >100 ppb gold and are associated with elevated arsenic, bismuth, copper, lead and zinc (+/- antimony).

Limited rock sampling was also conducted on the target, with 18 rock grab and chip samples collected from the Soda Ridge target as part of initial geologic mapping efforts.  Assays for the sampling ranged from trace to 3.28 g/t gold.  Several of the samples also contained elevated silver and base metals with values ranging from 0.16 – 909 g/t silver, trace – 3.9% copper, trace – 2.01% lead, and trace – 2.17% zinc.

The company granted 150,000 incentive stock options to two consultants that are exercisable at $0.42 per share for 5 years and expire July 2, 2025.

K2 has approximately $1.6 million in cash and has projects in SW USA, Yukon and Alaska.