Soma Gold Corp. announced the results of the initial diamond drill program conducted at the La Aurora Mine on the Machuca Project in central Colombia. Three drill holes, totalling 656m of drilling, were successfully completed in late December 2023.

Furthermore, this release also presents the results obtained from the 2022 due diligence underground sampling program. The assays from both the channel samples and drill holes are detailed and discussed herein. La Aurora Mine is located on the western side of the Otu Fault within an area characterized by a regionally extensive high-metaphoric grade gneiss.

Quartz veins in this region form as laminated fault-fill veins within a sinistral brittle-ductile shear zone, interpreted as a higher-order structure associated with the Otu Fault. The controlling fault zone is predominantly north-south striking and dips moderately to steeply to the west. This fault, along with associated quartz veins, forms a series of en echelon segments that consistently step approximately 25m-50m to the left along strike.

Uniquely oriented quartz veins, created to accommodate extension within step-over zones, in these domains strike southeast and dip steeply to the south. Extensional step-over zones are recognized as hosting high-grade ore shoots and represent highly promising exploration targets. In 2022, Soma conducted due diligence channel sampling at La Aurora Mine.

The channel samples were collected along the strike of La Constancia vein on level 5 of the mine. A total of 69 channel samples were obtained from 37 lines covering approximately 110m along the strike of La Constancia vein. Out of these, 35 samples were quartz vein material from La Constancia vein while the remaining 34 samples were wall rock shoulder samples in the footwall and hanging wall of the quartz vein.

Table 1 presents the composite grades of each channel sample line, ranging from 0.01 g/t Au to 94.67 g/t. Among these, 21 quartz vein samples reported gold grades exceeding 0.4 g/t, with the remaining 15 vein samples indicating the nuggety nature of the gold distribution. Notably, seven wall rock shoulder samples returned gold assays ranging from 0.9 g/t Au to 9.07 g/t Au, attributed to thin veins containing sulphides and gold in the footwall of the main vein structure. The grade distribution of the due diligence samples aligns with the historical underground channel sample dataset, where the maximum historical sample along La Constancia vein was 146 g/t Au.

Due diligence samples adjacent to the high-grade historical sample reported gold assays exceeding 7 g/t. AURDDH-23-001 unexpectedly intersected mine workings not documented in existing mine surveys. It could not be completed to the planned depth and, consequently, prevented the hole from intersecting the targeted section of the Constancia vein. AURDDH-24-002 Targeting down dip of high-grade channel samples from La Constancia vein on level 5, this hole intersected the vein 30 m below level 5, spanning from 178.8 m to 181.35 m with an approximate true width of 2.25 m true width.

The milky white quartz vein was brecciated by younger, brittle fractures during structure reactivation. The fractures are filled with crushed vein material and pyrite. Assay samples of the vein did not return any significant gold values.

A narrow interval of thin quartz veins occurs 2.5 m downhole from the main vein intersection and returned a weakly anomalous gold value of 0.18 g/t Au over 0.35 m at a depth of 183.9 m. AURDDH-24-003 was designed to intersect a southeast striking, steeply dipping quartz vein segment that forms in the extensional stepover zone between the Constancia and Aurora veins. The vein, interpreted as forming in a normal fault accommodating extension between the two north-south striking veins, was intersected from 151.6 m to 152.7 m with a true width of 1.0 m, situated 30 m up-dip of its exposure on level 5. The intersection is comprised of a late milky white quartz-carbonate vein crosscutting an older brecciated dark grey quartz vein. In the footwall, 1 cm to 3 cm thick quartz veins with variable orientations and density form a 35m wide stockwork interval.

The veins contain 1%-5% sphalerite and galena, which typically accompanies gold mineralization along the Otú Fault corridor. The quartz-carbonate vein was barren of gold mineralization, but a set of thin (1.0 cm to 4.0 cm) quartz veins with pyrite, sphalerite, and galena returned a gold assay of 8.35 g/t over 0.5 m within the stockwork interval. Additional sampling has been undertaken to continuously sample the entire stockwork interval to determine whether any unsampled quartz veins also contain high-grade gold.

The initial 2023 drill program successfully confirmed the presence of the Constancia and Aurora veins at depth below the current mine workings. While the low gold grades from the Constancia vein in AURDDH-23-002 are disappointing, they are consistent with the nuggety distribution of gold grade observed in the 2022 due diligence channel samples on level 5. Further drilling on a tighter spacing is required to fully delineate the vein and gold distribution within the vein system in La Aurora Mine. Soma is currently engaged in dewatering the mine to its deepest levels, enabling access to Levels 1 and 5. The engineering team is diligently evaluating the safety conditions of the mine.

Simultaneously, the exploration team is set to conduct geological mapping, systematic sampling, and accurate surveys of the mine workings. The resulting additional information will be seamlessly integrated into the current datasets to strategically plan the next phase of drilling in 2024.