TORONTO, March 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. (BGM.V) (the “Company” or “Barkerville”) is pleased to announce additional drilling results from the 2017 Valley Zone and Barkerville Mountain exploration and drilling programs at the Company’s flagship Cariboo Gold Project.   Detailed drilling results, a drill hole location plan map and vertical sections are presented at the end of this release. The exact geometry and hence true width of the mineralized zones cannot be assuredly concluded at this time therefore core lengths are reported.

Drilling Highlights

• CM-17-078: 11.22 g/t Au over 8.25 meters
• CM-17-084: 22.11 g/t Au over 5.85 meters
• CM-17-096: 12.50 g/t Au over 8.00 meters
• CM-17-096: 2250 g/t Au over 0.50 meters
• BM-17-001: 9.60 g/t Au over 2.10 meters
• BM-17-008: 22.72 g/t Au over 1.50 meters

The Company is pleased to report vein mineralization expansion from the exploration drilling at Valley Zone. Drill hole CM-17-084 intersected 7.45 g/t Au over 6.70 meters at a vertical depth of 400 meters. Further down hole, CM-17-084 intersected 22.11 g/t Au over 5.85 meters demonstrating wide vein corridors in the Valley Zone.

Drillhole CM-17-096 intersected 12.50 g/t Au over 8.00 meters down dip of existing modelled veins, and 11.74 g/t Au over 5.15 meters further down hole. CM-17-096 also intersected a 0.5 m wide vein that assayed 2,250 g/t Au.

In addition to results at Valley Zone, the Company’s 4,000-meter Phase I exploration program on Barkerville Mountain yielded mineralized vein intersections of 9.60 g/t Au over 2.10 meters in BM-17-001 at a vertical depth of 180 meters. Drillhole BM-17-002 intersected 4.09 g/t Au over 4.25 meters located 70 meters down dip of BM-17-001. Drillhole BM-17-008 intersected mineralized quartz vein with 22.72 g/t Au over 1.50 meters at a vertical depth of 400 meters. These intersections are adjacent to the previously reported KL zone target area.  These intersections remain untested along strike and at depth, holes in this area are at approximately 100 meter spacing and have analogous host lithology and mineralization to the veins present on Cow and Island Mountain. Further drilling is warranted in this area.

Corridors Discussion

Mineralized quartz veins at the Valley Zone on Cow Mountain are hosted within the sandstones and are an anastomosing network of high vein density with an overall sub-vertical dip and northeast strike. Recent modelling of vein corridors at Valley Zone proposes 17 mineralized vein corridors with an estimated horizontal width of 3 meters and a strike length of up to 300 meters. These corridors, have been defined from surface to a vertical depth of 600 meters and remain open for expansion to depth and down plunge. Drill hole spacing in the corridors currently averages 25 meters between drilling sections with vertical drilling separations ranging from 20 to 75 meters with hole spacing increasing at depth. Gold grades are intimately associated with vein-hosted pyrite as well as pyritic, intensely silicified wall rock haloes in close proximity to the veins.

Qualified Persons

Exploration activities at the Cariboo Gold Project are administered on site by the Company’s Project Geologists, Kyle Orr and Felipe Castaneda. As per National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, Maggie Layman, P.Geo. Vice President Exploration, is the Qualified Person for the Company and has prepared, validated and approved the technical and scientific content of this news release. The Company strictly adheres to CIM Best Practices Guidelines in conducting, documenting, and reporting its exploration activities on the Cariboo Gold Project.

Quality Assurance – Quality Control

Once received from the drill and processed, all drill core samples are sawn in half, labelled and bagged.  The remaining drill core is subsequently stored on site at the Company’s secure facility in Wells, BC.  Numbered security tags are applied to lab shipments for chain of custody requirements.  The Company inserts quality control (QC) samples at regular intervals in the sample stream, including blanks and reference materials with all sample shipments to monitor laboratory performance. The QAQC program was designed and approved by Lynda Bloom, P.Geo. of Analytical Solutions Ltd., and is overseen by the Company’s Qualified Person, Maggie Layman, P.Geo, Vice President Exploration.

Drill core samples are submitted to ALS Geochemistry’s analytical facility in North Vancouver, British Columbia for preparation and analysis. The ALS facility is accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard for gold assays and all analytical methods include quality control materials at set frequencies with established data acceptance criteria. The entire sample is crushed and 250 grams is pulverized. Analysis for gold is by 50g fire assay fusion with atomic absorption (AAS) finish with a lower limit of 0.01 ppm and upper limit of 100 ppm. Samples with gold assays greater than 100 ppm are re-analyzed using a 1,000g screen metallic fire assay. A selected number of samples are also analyzed using a 48 multi-elemental geochemical package by a 4-acid digestion, followed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectroscopy (ICP-MS).