Au Gold Corp. announced it has received the necessary permits to conduct its inaugural diamond drill program at its road accessible Ponderosa epithermal gold project 16 km southwest of Merritt, BC. The fully funded drill program will comprise a minimum 1,500 m of diamond drilling in 10- 14 holes to be conducted by Superior Diamond Drilling Inc. of Powell River, BC.

Phase I drilling is expected to commence in April and will target the Tomahawk and Flat Iron Zones in the central part of the property. Fully funded diamond drilling of 1,500 m in 10-14 holes to commence in April. Targeting 15 m wide auriferous bedrock vein exposure at Tomahawk that has never been drill- tested.

Targeting 25 m wide historical auriferous zone at Flat Iron that has never been drill-tested. The Tomahawk Zone is currently exposed for 55 m along a north-northeast strike and 15 m across the widest continuous exposure. Dips are moderate to steep toward the west between 45 and 70 degrees.

Mineralization and alteration comprise high level angular volcanic breccias with multiple phases of silica cement and stockwork style veining; tan to orange-brown clay altered volcanic often finely fractured with multiple generations of clear to white sheeted quartz; and massive to weakly crustiform banded opaque and white quartz veining. Select saw channel samples from hand trenches defining the zone returned 3.99 g/t Au and 14.9 g/t Ag across 1 m of quartz veining and 0.63 g/t Au across 1.25 m of adjacent altered volcanic. The vein zone remains open along strike and the hanging-wall contact has not been delineated.

The Flat Iron Zone is interpreted as an offset continuation of the Tomahawk Zone and lies 100 m to the south-southeast across a property scale easterly trending structure. Historical trenching in this target area encountered a broad zone of altered and silicified volcanic strata with localized quartz vein material from which a 25 m interval reportedly returned a weighted average grade of 0.80 g/t Au. The historical report documents seven chip samples (0.5 to 1.0 m) within the interval exceeding 1 g/t Au to a maximum of 7.54 g/t Au across 1.0 m. In addition, a narrow parallel zone of similar mineralization and alteration was identified by historical trenching approximately 60 m to the east.

Samples of quartz-rich mineralization from this zone reportedly returned 1.24 g/t Au across 4.0 m. Further assessment of the Flat Iron target by AUGC in 2021 mapped out two roughly 30 m wide parallel north-northeast trending zones of rusty clay altered and weakly silicified volcanic with numerous concentrations of localized quartz vein material ranging in width from several cm's to 25 cm. This surface vein mineralization was traced 70 m along strike to the south-southwest from the reported historical trench locations. A series of composite surface samples consisting only of quartz vein material from the two parallel zones returned values ranging from 0.10 g/t Au to 1.02 g/t Au.

None of the altered volcanic was sampled.