Banyan Gold Corp. June 14 announced the start of an initial phase of 2021 drilling at the Aurex Hill target on its AurMac gold project about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Victoria Gold Corp.'s Eagle Mine in the Yukon.

AurMac hosts 52.58 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.54 grams per metric ton (903,945 oz) gold in two deposits – Powerline and Airstrip.

Aurex Hill is an intriguing resource expansion target that lies about 1,200 meters east of Powerline.

"Banyan is excited to return to Aurex Hill and follow up on the near-surface gold mineralization identified in our 2020 drill program," said Tara Christie, president and CEO of Banyan Gold. "Phase 1 drilling on the Aurex Hill target should unlock the potential to develop another near-surface resource."

Aurex Hill covers a roughly 10-square-kilometer (3.9 square miles) area defined by a large, coincident gold- and arsenic-in-soil geochemical anomaly. Over 12,500 meters of historical rotary air blast drilling from 442 shallow holes, along with 15 diamond drill holes, have been drilled at Aurex Hill.

Last year, Banyan drilled seven exploration holes designed to test a small portion of the coincident gold and arsenic-in-soil anomalies at Aurex Hill. This drilling was completed more than 300 meters northwest of the historical drill holes and within the same lithological package as the Powerline zone, which is more than 1,250 meters to the northwest.

Earlier this year, Banyan reported that assays from the first holes in this area, intersected a well-developed and pervasive oxidized footprint to depths of more than 40 meters. Highlights from this drilling include:

• 1.11 g/t gold over 17.9 meters from surface in AX-20-57

• 0.91 g/t gold over 20.5 meters from surface in AX-20-54

The 5,000-meter initial phase of the 2021 drill program at Aurex Hill is planned to build on the success of the 2020 drilling, with the hopes of connecting this mineralized portion of the system with the historically drilled zones.

Prior to the start of drilling at Aurex Hills, Banyan had completed 10,476 meters of resource expansion drilling this year at the Powerline deposit.

So far, the company has only received assays from 16 of these holes. Highlights from the latest batch of assay results, reported by Banyan on June 7, include:

• 76.2 meters averaging 0.5 g/t gold from surface in hole AX-21-79.

Banyan Gold Corp.

After drilling 50 resource expansion holes at the Powerline deposit, Banyan is targeting the Aurex Hills area to the east.

• 33.1 meters averaging 0.5 g/t gold from a depth of 62.2 meter in AX-21-83.

• 81.4 meters averaging 1.03 g/t gold from 32 meters in AX-21-88.

"The Powerline deposit mineralization continues to expand; with the consistency and persistence being impressive," Christie said.

Banyan hopes to encounter similar impressive consistency and persistence of gold mineralization at Aurex Hills to the east.