Commencement Of Drilling At The Tonopah Gold Project

Commencement Of Drilling At The Tonopah Gold Project

VANCOUVER, BC – Viva Gold Corp. reported on plans to commence reverse circulation drilling operations at its Tonopah Gold Project by mid-February 2024. All drilling contracts are signed, and the Company has been granted approval by the US Bureau of Land Management for its Work Plan #42, allowing up to 23 new drill locations. We anticipate drilling approximately 12 to 15 holes to an average planned depth of 150 meters in this program. Archaeologic clearance and construction of drill pads is planned to commence February 5. Tonopah is located on the prolific Walker Lane mineral trend in western Nevada, about 20 minutes’ drive from the town of Tonopah.

The focus of this program is to further delineate the new, near-surface, high-grade (>1.0 gram per tonne) gold zones discovered in our 2022/23 drill programs. These discoveries were typically related to approximate north-south splay fractures. A majority of the drillholes planned for the 2024 program are designed to offset the splay zones defined in the 2022/23 program to better determine the width extents and continuity of those zones. Other holes are designed to test undrilled gaps between known mineralized zones.

“As part of our recent resource modelling efforts at Tonopah, we determined that additional drilling was required to better define the width dimension of the newly discovered splay zones as well as to further infill along the strike length of those zones. All of these new drill-holes are planned in the eastern half of the main pit zone as defined in our 2022 PEA, an area that had historically been sparsely drilled, leaving room for new discovery. We believe that this additional drilling will help to further grow the shallow high-grade zones for early mining, while also helping to convert material previously carried as waste in our pit designs into mineralized resource. Either or both outcomes, if successful, will work to further improve already robust project economics”, said James Hesketh, President & CEO. “During 2024, Viva further plans to complete a new resource estimate and to advance Tonopah towards permitting and pre-Feasibility Study status. The gold market is supportive of new mine development opportunities and the Tonopah project presents a unique opportunity for investment in the heart of gold mining country.”