Argonaut Gold Inc. announced that it has discovered high grade gold veins below the El Crestón open pit at its La Colorada mine in Sonora, Mexico. The high grade intercepts include: Drill hole 20-LCRC-592 intersected 12.2 meters at 98.9 g/t Au and 30.3 g/t Ag, including 3.0 meters of 383.0 g/t Au and 113.5 g/t Ag. Drill hole 20-LCRC-562 intersected 21.3 meters at 44.6 g/t Au and 274.9 g/t Ag, including 3.0 metres of 283.1 g/t Au and 858.0 g/t Ag. Argonaut's exploration drilling at La Colorada has intersected several high-grade veins extending below the planned El Crestón ultimate pit. The high-grade zones are deep extensions of the gold rich veins now being mined within the El Crestón open pit and display good lateral continuity along strike. All intercepts are associated with oxide material in quartz veins or quartz breccia, which are hosted in broader zones of structural weakness. The first drill program was conducted using a reverse-circulation (‘RC’) drill rig and focused on testing for down dip extensions of the three main vein sets within the El Crestón open pit. The RC drilling was conducted using industry best practices with drill samples collected on 1.5 metre intervals using down hole centre-face return hammer bits, cyclone collection and riffle splitters to reduce contamination and maintain clean, accurate samples. To further confirm high-grade gold and silver intercepts in RC drilling, Argonaut completed three twin diamond drill core (‘DD’) holes to validate the RC sample assays. All drilling was above or near the top of the water table, in competent rock, and recoveries in both the RC and DD holes are considered excellent. Since the El Crestón pit is actively being mined, the DD twin holes were drilled from lower benches and therefore the down-hole distance of the RC holes and DD holes vary slightly, and the twin intervals are close though not a perfect match. Mining activity in the La Colorada district dates to the mid-1700s when underground mining took place at various periods of time until the early 1900s. In the 1990s, La Colorada was re-started as an open pit, heap leach mine until decommissioning in 2002. Argonaut re-started open pit, heap leach operations in 2012 and, through 2020, has produced over 400,000 gold ounces at La Colorada. Gold and silver at La Colorada are hosted in a series of low sulfidation epithermal style quartz veins formed along a major regional suture zone. Four deposits – Gran Central, La Colorada, El Crestón and Veta Madre – have been mined, or are currently being mined and/or are in the future mine plans. At El Crestón, mineralization occurs along east-west oriented sets of sub-parallel veins, vein breccias and stockworks that maintain good lateral continuity for over 800 metres along strike and are known to continue extensively at depth. Three major veins – the North, Central and South veins – comprise the principal mineral production at El Crestón.