TORONTO, Feb. 07, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Red Pine Exploration Inc. (RPX.V) ("Red Pine" or the "Company") announces results from three holes at its Wawa Gold Project. The drill holes were part of Red Pine’s 2017 drill program.

Drilling highlights:

• Discovery of new high-grade veins in the Minto Stockwork (Table 1):
  • SD-17-131 contains 27.84 g/t gold over 3 metres;
  • SD-17-126 contains two zones in the Minto Stockwork
    - 6.39 g/t gold over 1m
    - 6.8 g/t gold over 1m
     
• Discovery of high-grade mineralization in the extension of the Minto Mine South Zone (Table 2):
  • SD-17-131 contains 13.15 g/t gold over 3.1 metres;

Quentin Yarie, President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Pine stated, "The systematic discovery of high-grade veins in the surroundings of the Minto Mine South Zone, in addition to the Minto Vein itself, suggests the existence of widespread mineralization in the area. The Minto vein itself is producing consistent results to 225m vertical depth and from a 40m step-out down-dip of the last hole with known results.”

Table 1. Highlights of the 2017 drilling results in the Minto Stockwork

Additional drilling is required to estimate the true width of the Minto stockwork composed of numerous veins with different geometries.

Table 2. Highlights of the 2017 drilling results in the Minto Mine South Zone

*Assay results reported over intersection length. In the Minto Mine South Zone, for SD-17-131, the intersection length is estimated to be >65% true width.

Minto Mine South Discovery Area 
Red Pine’s exploration drilling in the Minto Mine South Zone (“MMSZ”) supports the continuity of the MMSZ. The intersections of many quartz veins in the Minto Stockwork, some with high-grade gold, further support the presence of a widespread gold mineralization halo around the MMSZ in the Minto Stockwork. Hole SD-17-116, drilled in the northern extension of the Jubilee Shear Zone, did not contain any significant results.

Wawa Gold Project Background
The Wawa Gold property package consists of over 5,500 hectares and hosts several former mines with a combined historic production of 120,000 oz gold¹.  To date, the largest gold deposit on the property is the Surluga Deposit, which hosts a NI 43-101 Inferred Resource of 1,088,000 oz gold at an average grade of 1.71 g/t (using a 0.5 g/t cut-off) contained within 19.82 million tonnes².

Since December 2014, Red Pine's exploration work has involved the ongoing sampling of 42,000 m of historic core that was never sampled by previous operators of the project, and aggressive drilling campaigns. To date, the Company has completed over 34,000 m of drilling and made four discoveries along the extension of the Surluga Deposit: the Surluga North Zone; the Hornblende-William Zone; the Minto Mine South Zone and; the Grace-Darwin Zone. These are part of the Wawa Gold Corridor, a gold-mineralization zone that extends for more than 5 km.

Red Pine’s on-going drill program is designed to potentially expand the size of the existing inferred gold resource and connect the other zones of gold mineralization along the newly-discovered Wawa Gold Corridor. Two drills are currently operating non-stop- one is targeting the Surluga North discovery while the second drill is targeting the Minto Mine South Zone discovery.

The Company is well positioned to fund its share of the Wawa Gold exploration program. As such, the sampling and drill programs are expected to continue in 2018.

On-site Quality Assurance/Quality Control (“QA/QC”) Measures
Drill core samples were transported in security-sealed bags for analyses to Activation Laboratories Ltd. in Ancaster, Ontario. Individual samples are labeled, placed in plastic sample bags and sealed. Groups of samples are then placed into durable rice bags and then shipped. The remaining coarse reject portions of the samples remain in storage if further work or verification is needed.

Red Pine has implemented a quality-control program to comply with best practices in the sampling and analysis of drill core. As part of its QA/QC program, Red Pine inserts external gold standards (low to high grade) and blanks every 20 samples in addition to random standards, blanks, and duplicates.

Qualified Person
Quentin Yarie, P Geo. is the qualified person responsible for preparing, supervising and approving the scientific and technical content of this news release.

About Red Pine Exploration Inc.
Red Pine Exploration Inc. is a gold and base-metals exploration company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Company's common shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "RPX".

Red Pine has a 60% interest in the Wawa Gold Project with Citabar LP. holding the remaining 40% interest. Red Pine is the Operating Manager of the Project and is focused on expanding the existing gold resource on the property.