Victoria Gold Corp. Jan. 19 announced that assay results from its 2022 drill program at Raven show the growth potential of this higher-grade gold deposit on Victoria's Dublin Gulch property in the Yukon.

In September, the company announced a maiden inferred resource for Raven of 19.96 million metric tons of pit-constrained inferred resource averaging 1.67 g/t (1.07 million oz) gold.

The 2022 Raven drilling campaign, which saw more holes drilled into this emerging gold deposit than all previous seasons combined, was designed to expand the inaugural resource. This included the Raven proximal program, which involved drilling within and proximal to the current footprint of the Raven deposit to further define and test the mineralization potential and contribute to another updated Raven resource estimate later this year. A second aspect was the Raven distal exploration program, which included drilling beyond the existing Raven deposit to test the extension of mineralization by approximately 500 meters strike length and over 100 meters in width.

The company says the assays from the distal program are not expected to inform an updated resource estimate this year but are intended to confirm the existence of mineralization for future resource expansion.

During the 2022 season, 27,215 meters of diamond drilling were completed across the claim package, including 90 drill holes for 25,244 meters at Raven.

Of the 90 holes, 30 were located within the Raven resource footprint, and 14 (4,410 meters) were collared within 100 meters of the primary Raven resource.

The Raven distal exploration program – from which the most recent assays were received – consisted of 46 drill holes (12,024 meters), with the majority being collared more than 100 meters from the Raven resource bounds. Victoria says mineralization remains open, in particular, to the east, which will be the focus of the next phase of exploration.

"Exploration efforts at the Dublin Gulch gold camp continue to highlight the exceptional gold potential of the property and, in specific, the near-surface Raven gold deposit," said Victoria Gold President and CEO John McConnell. "Raven exploration this past season was focused on testing the expansion potential from the maiden mineral resource estimate and, notably, 2022 saw more holes collared in and around Raven than all previous combined."

Assays for 39 of the 46 holes from the distal program have been received; highlights include:

• 6.9 meters averaging 7.18 g/t gold from a depth of 128.1 meters in hole NG22-155C, and 83.5 meters averaging 3.59 g/t gold from 213.5 meters; including 47 meters averaging 6.26 g/t gold from 213.5 meters, 14.5 meters averaging 20.24 g/t gold from 246 meters, and 5.3 meters averaging 45.84 g/t gold from 250.7 meters.

• 105.5 meters averaging 0.65 g/t gold from a depth of 202 meters in hole NG22-162C, including 5 meters averaging 8.28 g/t gold from 216.5 meters.

• 14.2 meters averaging 1.98 g/t gold from a depth of 67 meters in hole NG22-082C.

• 25.7 meters averaging 1.15 g/t gold from 85.3 meters in hole NG22-085C.

"Of particular interest was the high-grade intersection in hole NG22-155C, which assayed 3.59 g/t over 83.5 meters, approximately 300 meters east along strike from the existing Raven resource," added McConnell.

With the initial results rolling in already showing such spectacular results, it is an exciting year for Victoria, considering the difficulties the company faced in 2022.

Click image to see larger map.

You can read about Victoria Gold's year-in snapshot at A difficult year does not stop Victoria in the Mining Explorers 2022 magazine published by Data Mine North, parent company to North of 60 Mining News.

Overall, the Dublin Gulch exploration program was completed at the end of October. In addition to the drilling at Raven, this program included 1,865 soil geochemical samples; 1,971 meters of diamond drilling at the Lynx target (six holes); 936 meters of surface trenching at Lynx; exploration camp upgrades to support an extended exploration season; and detailed structural-geological mapping; and prospecting.