GT Gold Corp. June 4 said crews are on their way to Tatogga to begin a planned 18,000-meter drill program at this exciting new gold project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.

A 16,000-meter discovery drill program carried out last year included 86 holes that were primarily focused on the Saddle South discovery.

Highlights from the high-grade gold cut during this drilling include 7 meters of 51.53 g/t gold and 117.38 g/t silver; 12.2 meters of 14.75 g/t gold; 3.4 meters of 48.85 g/t gold; 8.3 meters of 20.02 g/t gold; and 3 meters averaging 31.79 g/t gold and 1,141 g/t silver.

Most of this drilling focused on a 400-meter-long core of the Saddle South deposit, known as the Discovery zone. Step-out holes to both the east and west of this zone encountered gold, suggesting the potential to expand the high-grade gold zone.

GT Gold is especially excited about an 800-metre-long induced polarization anomaly to the east that may represent sulfide-rich veins as demonstrated by TTD059, a hole drilled late in 2017 that cut 5.83 meters of 12.12 g/t gold.

Drilling, which is slated to get underway by mid-June, will start off by testing Saddle South's expansion potential with one rig testing each end of the Discovery zone.

This year's drilling will also test a porphyry copper-gold-silver target at Saddle North that was only briefly drilled at the end of 2017.

Reconnaissance hole TTD062 tapped this porphyry-style mineralization beneath thick glacial cover toward the eastern end of the Saddle North trend. The 210.53-meter intercept from bedrock surface to the bottom of hole 62 ran 0.14 g/t gold, 0.28 g/t silver, and 0.16 percent copper. These grades strengthened at depth, with the bottom 33.73 meters averaging 0.22 g/t gold, 0.36 g/t silver and 0.24 percent copper.

Hole TTD064, drilled about 1,000 meters west of hole 62, cut 18.4 meters of similar mineralization that averaged 1.35 g/t gold, 1.42 g/t silver and 0.37 percent copper, including 7.4 meters of 2.28 g/t gold, 2.03 g/t silver and 0.56 percent copper.

GT Gold says the porphyry style mineralization encountered over a 3,000-meter area at Saddle North is reminiscent of what Imperial Metals is mining at Red Chris, a copper-gold operation about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) southeast of the Saddle targets.

High-priority targets are being defined at Saddle North as GT Gold's geological team follows up on this early-stage discovery that may represent the "engine" of the Saddle mineralizing system.

In addition to drilling, GT Gold crews will investigate Quash-Pass, a prospect area about seven kilometers (4.3 miles) southwest of the Saddle targets.

The company says Quash-Pass features a 6,000-meter-long trend of elevated gold and silver, along with Saddle South pathfinder elements such as zinc, copper, and bismuth in soils. Along with these geochemical characteristics, this prospect area has geological and geophysical similarities to Saddle South.

GT Gold said Saddle South, Saddle North and Quash-Pass form a golden triangle of gold targets on the 425-square-kilometer (164 square miles) Tatogga Project in northwestern B.C.

"As demonstrated by exciting new discoveries at Saddle and elsewhere in the Golden Triangle last year, this region's mineral potential is truly exceptional," said GT Gold President and CEO Kevin Keough. "GT Gold will once again play a leading role on the exploration front in northwest B.C. this summer and we're also constructing a sturdier, winterized camp to extend the drilling season further into Q4 (fourth quarter)."

Looking down on the exploration camp from the location of Saddle South drilling. GT Gold is making improvements to this camp that will allow crews to continue drilling this northern British Columbia gold property later into the season.

–SHANE LASLEY