GT Gold Commences Phase 1 Exploration Drilling Program at Saddle North

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 13, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GT Gold (TSX-V:GTT) (the “Company” or “GT Gold”) is pleased to announce that it has commenced its 10,000-metre Phase 1 exploration program targeting expansion of the high-grade Saddle North Cu-Au porphyry discovery at its 100%-owned Tatogga Project. The Company will release drill results once received, compiled and interpreted, with an initial release expected toward the end of July.

Highlights:

• The goal of the Phase 1 program is to further define and potentially expand the shallow high grades identified in hole TTD108, as well as expand the known deeper high-grade mineralization at Saddle North.
  
  
• Drilling is now underway with two rigs which aim to:
  
  
  1. test up-dip from drill hole TTD108, which returned values of 0.83 g/t Au, 0.52% Cu, 1.39 g/t Ag over 116.9m; and was the shallowest hole (350m) drilled in 2018;
     
     
  2. test along trend to both the northwest and southeast from TTD108, and;
     
     
  3. test the down-dip and along strike extensions of the deeper and higher-grade core centred around 2018 drill holes TTD093 and TTD109, the latter of which returned, from surface, a world class interval of 0.62 g/t Au, 0.36% Cu, 1.17 g/t Ag over 1150m.

Concurrent with Phase 1 drilling, additional exploration activities are planned, including Induced Polarization (IP) and airborne Magnetotelluric (MT) surveys, geologic mapping, prospecting, and soil sampling. The objective of these activities is to develop additional targets at and peripheral to Saddle North, and across the 468 km² property. The targets will be tested in an anticipated Phase 2 drill program later in the season.

Tatogga Property

GT Gold’s Tatogga Project lies in the northern part of northwest B.C.’s prolific Golden Triangle. The property features district scale exploration potential, with two recent discoveries, Saddle North and Saddle South, along with a third target, Quash-Pass, which is close to being drill-ready. All are proximal to Highway 37 and to grid power that leads to the nearby Red Chris copper-gold mine, approximately 20 km to the southeast. GT Gold is well funded, with a current cash position of approximately C$19 million.

Saddle North

Initial drilling at Saddle North followed indications from early rock and soil geochemical sampling, geology, and geophysical work which outlined a kilometre-scale geochemical, magnetic and Induced Polarization (IP) chargeability anomaly coincident with local exposure of quartz-sericite-pyrite altered rocks. Reconnaissance holes TTD062 and 064, completed late in the 2017 drilling season, indicated the presence of a copper-gold porphyry system that bore some similarities to the nearby Red Chris copper-gold mine. The results from the 2018 program demonstrated the potential for a significant copper-gold porphyry system at Saddle North, with grades exceeding 1.0% CuEq¹ and 1.5 g/t AuEq¹ in a higher-grade core zone (see news January 9, 2019). It also showed that this core zone reached from near surface (hole TTD108) to greater than 1,300 metres down-dip, where it remains open. True width of the core zone is approximately 100 metres in hole TTD108, at a depth of 200m. Copper equivalent grade appears to increase with depth, and mineralized thickness increases to greater than 300 metres in holes TTD093 and TTD109. The 2018 results also demonstrated that the high-grade core zone extends along strike at least 500 metres (to hole TTD102) and that it lies within a much broader, strongly mineralized envelope with a drilled strike length in excess of 650 metres, a true width of approximately 700 metres, and a down-dip extent of more than 1,300 metres. This large, high-grade copper-gold mineralized zone generally appears to trend northwest-southeast and to dip steeply to the west-southwest, while the central higher-grade core zone may plunge similarly west-southwest.
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¹ January 4, 2019 intra-day spot prices used to calculate CuEq and AuEq are: Cu: $2.57/lb, Au: $1,294.80/oz, Ag: $15.65/oz. All values are reported in USD and do not consider metal recoveries.

Saddle South

The 2017 exploration program, testing a u-in-soil anomaly with the first-ever drilling in the Saddle area, resulted in the discovery of the epithermal gold system at Saddle South. It is hosted by hydrothermally altered volcanic fragmental and volcaniclastic rocks of the Upper Triassic Stuhini Group,cut by dikes primarily of latest Triassic and Early Jurassic age. Drilling defined a well-mineralized east-west trend of gold bearing sulphide-rich veins spanning roughly 400 metres along strike that is up to 150 metres across and is coincident with a moderate IP chargeability high and resistivity low. The 2017 drilling returned many high-grade intercepts (e.g., 51.53 g/t over 6.95 metres in TTD007; 20.02 g/t Au over 8.25 metres in TTD046), and the aim of the 2018 program at Saddle South was to further test the system along strike and to depth.

Drilling in the 2018 season at Saddle South expanded both the depth extent and the strike length of the mineralizing system. Deep intercepts on the west (e.g., TTD079), and on the east (e.g., TTD069), have increased the size and expanded the exploration footprint, as have intercepts along strike to the west (e.g., TTD065, TTD068, TTD076), and to the east (e.g., TTD105, with 187.5 g/t Au over 0.74m). On the west margin of Saddle Ridge, and in all holes drilled west of the ridge and beneath the rock glacier in that direction, mineralized veins generally trend north-northeast (average strike 200°) and dip moderately west-northwest (average 55°). Veins oriented in this direction correspond with a more southerly trend of the system, toward an area across the rock glacier where 2018 soil and talus fines sampling yielded highly encouraging results for gold (see news, September 4, 2018; figure 6). Also encouraging was the fact that drill holes collared from the rock glacier encountered less overburden than was expected (typically less than 30 metres), suggesting that the potential to the southwest may be readily tested

Quash-Pass

At the Quash-Pass area, located approximately 7 km southwest of Saddle, a 6 km long east-southeast trending belt of highly anomalous gold- and silver-in-soil geochemistry bears similarities to the Saddle South system. The trend is marked by the presence of highly anomalous Saddle South-style “pathfinder” elements in soils, such as zinc, copper, antimony, and bismuth. Preliminary IP surveying also indicates that elevated chargeabilities are coincident with the anomalous geochemistry, and consequently further surveys, as well as additional geological and geochemical work are planned at this undrilled prospect. 

Qualified Person

Charles J. Greig, M.Sc., P.Geo., Vice President, Exploration for GT Gold Corp. and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information in this press release.

About GT Gold

GT Gold Corp. is focused on exploring for base and precious metals in the geologically fertile terrain of British Columbia’s renowned Golden Triangle. The Company’s flagship asset is the wholly-owned, 46,827 hectare Tatogga property, located near Iskut, BC, upon which it achieved two significant discoveries in 2017 and 2018 at its Saddle prospect: a near surface bulk-tonnage and potential deep high-grade underground-style epithermal gold-silver vein system at Saddle South and, close by at Saddle North, a large-scale, richly mineralized porphyry gold-copper-silver mineralized intrusion.

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