Marvel Gold Limited announced the results of reconnaissance auger drilling at the Yanfolila Gold Project, located in southern Mali. Yanfolila is held under a joint venture with B2Gold in which Marvel holds an 80% interest. A total of 872 holes for 10,586 metres were drilled across three broad target zones, including the area hosting the Solona prospect which hosts known mineralisation and extensive artisanal gold workings targeting stockwork quartz veins.

The Solona target area., returned 34 holes containing 0.1 g/t Au gold, including 5 holes that returned values 0.5 g/t Au, with a peak value of 1.8 g/t Au. Significantly, the auger drilling suggests that ore-grade mineralisation may extend along strike beyond the limits of the currently known mineralisation at Solona and that another gold-mineralised system parallel with the Solona prospect is located approximately 500m to its north-west and which remains open to the north-west. Drilling at the Yanfolila Eastern Target was terminated prematurely due to the onset of seasonal rains.

At this target, drill line spacing was very broad, but results suggest that mineralisation encountered during an earlier phase of auger drilling continues over a strike length of at least 1.2km parallel to a known shear zone. Drilling in the north of the Yanfolila licence was confirmatory only, with one line of drilled across each anomaly. The area contains numerous shallow artisanal gold workings targeting the base of the laterite and the auger drilling suggests that this gold is transported and has not been locally sourced.

First-pass drilling of the Solona prospect at Yanfolila in 2012 returned significant intersections including 26.5m at 3.59g/t Au and 15.6m at 2.01g/t Au within an extensive gold-in-soil anomaly that extends for over 2km, where there has been limited drilling. During 2015, Oklo Resources Limited completed a shallow aircore drilling program that tested a new gold geochemical anomaly outlined by soil sampling at the Solona North-West prospect, located 2.1km to the northwest of Solona Main. Significant drill intersections from the program included 6m at 5.29g/t Au and confirmed the presence of bedrock gold mineralization associated with the extensive quartz veining.

A 5-hole RC program that was completed in 2016 returned a best result of 4m at 2.75g/t Au. Auger drilling is a rapid and cost-effective reconnaissance drilling technique used to test the bedrock in order to confirm that gold-in-soil anomalies are sourced from the underlying geology and that they have not been transported. Auger drilling has confirmed that in two of the three target zones tested, the soil anomalies are not transported but are in fact derived from the underlying bedrock.

The auger drilling was conducted as follow-up to a previous soil sampling program which defined strong and largely coherent gold and arsenic anomalism interpreted to be focussed at lithological contacts which are often favourable sites for the formation of quartz veins. Lithologies are composed primarily of Birimian volcano-sedimentary units of fine to coarse grained siliciclastic sediments interbedded with minor felsic and mafic volcanic rocks and volcaniclastic units. The sequence has been intruded by a series of biotite- bearing monzogranites, and porphyritic granites and microgranites, which in turn have been intruded by fine-grained granite and granodiorite.

The smaller intrusions generally have a northeast trend, corresponding with the regional foliation. Major structures generally strike NE-SW with mineralisation typically hosted in stockwork quartz veins which have formed at lithological contacts adjacent to the major structures. The Yanfolila auger samples will now be analysed in-house by the Company's portable X-ray fluorescence machine.

This will provide multi-element geochemical data which will enhance the understanding of the geology at Yanfolila, the results of which will inform the drill targeting process.