Corvus Gold hits 15.3 metres of 2.36 g/t gold at North Bullfrog, doubles property size

Corvus Gold (TSE:KOR) (OTCQX:CORVF) unveiled Monday the first results from its 2012 exploration drilling program on its North Bullfrog project near Beatty, Nevada.

The project holds several prospective gold targets with four, the Mayflower, Sierra Blanca, Jolly Jane and Connection targets, containing an NI 43-101 compliant estimated indicated resource of 182,577 ounces of gold and an inferred resource of 1.4 million ounces of gold, both at a 0.2 grams per tonne (g/t) cutoff, with appreciable silver credits.

Monday, Corvus reported results for hole NB-12-117, which encountered 52 metres of 0.8 g/t gold, including a higher grade intercept of 15.3 metres of 2.36 g/t gold starting at 11 metres below the surface.

Hole 117 was drilled at the Air Track West target, 400 metres west of the current boundary of the Sierra Blanca resource.

The company said the hole encountered gold mineralization within the "favourable Crater Flat Tuff unit", which thought to be possibly related to the deposit at Sierra Blanca.

Corvus said the results confirm historical drilling in this resource expansion target area.

"The intersection of shallow higher grade mineralization in a major step out, as seen in hole NB-12-117, is a significant positive for the North Bullfrog Project," said CEO Jeff Pontius.

"If the other step out holes also return positive results, the potential impact on the resource base could be dramatic and take an already attractive project much farther down the road towards a potential development decision."

The company is due to come out with a preliminary economic assessment of the North Bullfrog project later this month, which will not include these latest 2012 drill results.

Corvus said the reverse circulation (RC) drilling phase of the winter 2012 program has now been completed, with a total of 1,700 metres drilled in nine holes, now moving into the diamond drilling phase of the campaign.

The main focus of the reverse circulation drill program was to assess the overall resource footprint size to better target a 30,000 metre phase two RC drilling campaign, the company said, which is currently being permitted and is scheduled to start later this year.

During the latest program, the north and west margins of the Sierra Blanca deposit were tested with 400 metre step out holes to the west and the southern limit with 150 metre step outs that encountered gold mineralization.

At the Jolly Jane deposit, the northern extension was tested with 200 and 400 metre step outs, with results pending.

The phase two RC drill program will be designed to expand the existing oxide resource, and to upgrade the existing resource to the measured and indicated categories.

The diamond drilling campaign on the project, which began earlier this month, is designed to test higher grade feeder structures in the Yellowjacket target area in the northeastern part of the property, which has previously returned 11.9 g/t gold over 6.1 metres.

Oriented core is being drilled to better understand this high grade target, while large diameter core will be drilled in key deposits to allow for metallurgical testing.

"The start of the high-grade Feeder Zone exploration program is very exciting and, if successful, could fundamentally change the North Bullfrog Project and Corvus itself," Pontius continued.

"Finally, the encouragement the North Bullfrog Project has generated over the past 12 months has led us to substantially expand our property position as it appears we may be on top of a major new Nevada gold discovery in an area with excellent infrastructure and a highly skilled workforce."

Corvus has recently added approximately 25 square kilometres to its North Bullfrog project by staking 312 federal mining claims, bringing the land package to approximately 50 square kilometres.

The new staking covers potential extensions of the North Bullfrog gold system as well as land that may be needed for any potential future mining operation, the company added.

Corvus controls 100 percent of North Bullfrog, which is just north of the historic Bullfrog gold mine formerly operated by Barrick Gold (TSE:ABX). The property package is made up of a number of leased patented federal mining claims and 461 federal unpatented mining claims, and is adjacent to a major highway and power corridor.

Mineralization occurs in two primary forms, as in broad stratabound bulk-tonnage gold zones such as the Sierra Blanca and Jolly Jane systems and in moderately thick zones of high-grade gold and silver mineralization hosted in structural feeder zones such as the Mayflower and Yellowjacket targets.