Marathon Gold drills 22 metres of 6.57 g/t gold at Valentine Project, Newfoundland

Marathon Gold Corp. [MOZ-TSX; MGDPF-OTCQX] reported results from the first drill holes completed under the 2021 exploration program at the 100%-owned Valentine gold project, 55 km south of Buchans, west-central Newfoundland. These latest results represent fire assay data from seven drill holes located within the 1.5-kilometre-long Berry zone.

Highlights

VL-20-956 intersected 6.57 g/t gold over 22 metres, including 29.68 g/t gold over 3.0 metres. VL-20-957 returned 3.93 g/t gold over 21 metres, including 37.90 g/t gold over 1.0 metre and 12.35 g/t gold over 1.0 metre and 11.54 g/t gold over 1.0 metre and 9.21 g/t gold over 7.0 metres, including 29.17 g/t gold over 2.0 metres and 8.65 g/t gold over 2.0 metres, including 11.61 g/t gold over 1.0 metre.

VL-20-955 intersected 14.93 g/t gold over 3.0 metres, including 43.70 g/t gold over 1.0 metre. VL-20-958 returned 1.75 g/t gold over 12 metres, including 15.48 g/t gold over 1.0 metre. VL-20-953 intersected 0.92 g/t gold over 24 metres.

Matt Manson, President and CEO, commented: “We are releasing the first seven holes drilled as part of this year’s $10.5-million exploration program. Since the start of the program in mid-January we have completed 37 holes for a total of 10,335 metres drilled. All of our drilling is within the 1.5-kilometre-long Berry Zone. A first mineral resource estimate at Berry based on 42,000 metres of drilling completed to the end of 2020 is currently under preparation. A further 30,000 metres of drilling at Berry will be completed as part of the 2021 program with a view to further delineation and resource growth. Additional drilling in 2021 will be completed at the Sprite and Victory deposits, and on generative projects identified along the 20 kilometres of Valentine Lake shear zone contained within the property’s boundaries.”

All seven drill holes returned significant drill intercepts of greater than 0.7 g/t Au, and each drill hole 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.

The Valentine Project comprises a series of four mineralized deposits along a 20-km system. An April, 2020, prefeasibility study outlined an open-pit mining and conventional milling operation over a 12-year mine life with a 36% after-tax rate of return.