Barkerville Gold Mines Intersects 12.40 G/T Au Over 7.00 Metres at Shaft Zone

TORONTO, Jan. 24, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. (TSXV:BGM) (the “Company” or “Barkerville”) is pleased to announce additional drilling results from the 2017 Phase II Island Mountain exploration and infill drilling program at the Company’s flagship Cariboo Gold Project.   The Company is currently exploring and delineating the Shaft Zone with seven drill rigs. Detailed drilling results, a drill hole location plan map and vertical sections are presented at the end of this release. The exact geometry and hence true width of the mineralized zones cannot be assuredly concluded at this time therefore core lengths are reported.

Drilling Highlights

• IM-17-217: 7.28 g/t Au over 12.50 meters
• IM-17-217: 16.67 g/t Au over 5.20 meters
• IM-17-219: 12.40 g/t Au over 7.00 meters
• IM-17-223: 11.15 g/t Au over 7.30 meters
• IM-17-224: 8.71 g/t Au over 3.00 meters

The Company is pleased to report new mineralization expansion from the ongoing drilling at Island Mountain. Phase II drillhole IM-17-219 intersected 12.40 g/t Au over 7.00 meters at a vertical depth of 280 meters from surface. This new intersection is 135 meters down dip from previously reported hole IM-17-016 that assayed 5.62 g/t Au over 11.40 meters and 12.27 g/t Au over 7.45 meters. These correlating intercepts are a potential new vein corridor at Island Mountain.

Additional drill highlights include 7.28 g/t Au over 12.50 meters intersected in IM-17-217 at a vertical depth of 400 meters from surface, demonstrating wide corridors of mineralization at depth in the Shaft Zone. Drilling below 300 vertical meters is widely spaced in this area and additional drilling is warranted to expand known mineralization at depth. 

Shaft Zone - Corridors Discussion

The sandstone hosted veining which constitutes the newly named Alpha, Beta and Gamma Corridors of the Shaft Zone are manifested as an anastomosing network of high vein density with an overall sub-vertical dip and northeast strike. Based upon drilling results to date, estimated horizontal widths of the corridors are variable and range from 5 to 35 meters. These corridors, as well as others that are developing in the Shaft and Valley Zones have been defined from surface to a vertical depth of 600 meters and remain open for expansion to depth and down plunge. Drillhole spacing in the corridors currently averages 25 meters between drilling sections with vertical drilling separations ranging from 20 to 75 meters with hole spacing increasing to depth. Gold grades are intimately associated with vein-hosted pyrite as well as pyritic, intensely silicified wall rock haloes in close proximity to the veins.

Qualified Persons

Exploration activities at the Cariboo Gold Project are administered on site by the Company’s Exploration Manager, Maggie Layman, P.Geo. As per National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, Paul Geddes, P.Geo. Vice President Exploration, is the Qualified Person for the Company and has prepared, validated and approved the technical and scientific content of this news release. The Company strictly adheres to CIM Best Practices Guidelines in conducting, documenting, and reporting its exploration activities on the Cariboo Gold Project.

Quality Assurance – Quality Control

Once received from the drill and processed, all drill core samples are sawn in half, labelled and bagged.  The remaining drill core is subsequently stored on site at the Company’s secure facility in Wells, BC.  Numbered security tags are applied to lab shipments for chain of custody requirements.  The Company inserts quality control (QC) samples at regular intervals in the sample stream, including blanks and reference materials with all sample shipments to monitor laboratory performance. The QAQC program was designed and approved by Lynda Bloom, P.Geo. of Analytical Solutions Ltd., and is overseen by the Company’s Qualified Person, Paul Geddes, P.Geo, Vice President Exploration.

Drill core samples are submitted to ALS Geochemistry’s analytical facility in North Vancouver, British Columbia for preparation and analysis. The ALS facility is accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard for gold assays and all analytical methods include quality control materials at set frequencies with established data acceptance criteria. The entire sample is crushed and 250 grams is pulverized. Analysis for gold is by 50g fire assay fusion with atomic absorption (AAS) finish with a lower limit of 0.01 ppm and upper limit of 100 ppm. Samples with gold assays greater than 100 ppm are re-analyzed using a 1,000g screen metallic fire assay. A selected number of samples are also analyzed using a 48 multi-elemental geochemical package by a 4-acid digestion, followed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectroscopy (ICP-MS).

About Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd.

The Company is focused on developing its extensive land package located in the historical Cariboo Mining District of central British Columbia. Barkerville’s mineral tenures cover 1,950 square kilometres along a strike length of 67 kilometres which includes several past producing hard rock mines of the historic Barkerville Gold Mining Camp near the town of Wells, British Columbia. The QR Project, located approximately 110 kilometres by highway and all weather road from Wells was acquired by Barkerville in 2010 and boasts a fully permitted 900 tonne/day gold milling and tailings facility. Test mining of the Bonanza Ledge open pit was completed in March of 2015 with 91,489 tonnes of material milled producing 25,464 ounces of gold. The Company has completed several drilling and exploration programs over the past 20 years and has compiled this data with all historical information in order develop geologic models which are assisting management in defining new deposits in the Cariboo Gold Project. An extensive drill program is currently underway with the goal of delineating additional high grade gold mineralization.

Table 1: Length weighted gold composites for Shaft Zone Phase II drillholes:

True widths cannot be accurately determined from the information available therefore core lengths are reported. Intervals not recovered by drilling were assigned zero grade. Top cuts have not been applied to high grade assays.

Table 2: Drillhole Collar Orientations: