TORONTO, Dec. 18, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Red Pine Exploration Inc. (RPX.V) ("Red Pine" or the "Company") announces results from seven holes drilled in the Minto Mine South Zone (“MMSZ”) at the Company’s Wawa Gold Project. The drill holes were part of Red Pine’s 20,000 m drilling program that was completed earlier this fall.

Drilling highlights for the Minto Mine area include:

• High-grade gold mineralization of the MMSZ continues to extend south towards the Parkhill mine (current strike length of 375 metres):
  • SD-17-115 contains 14.2 g/t gold over 2 metres and 2.22 g/t gold over 2 metres;
  • SD-17-117 contains 13.72 g/t gold over 4 metres. 

• Discovery of Stockwork Mineralization around the MMSZ:
  • SD-17-110A contain 0.43 g/t over 32.3 metres (Figures 1, 3);
  • SD-17-111 contains 5.14 g/t gold over 1 metre;
  • SD-17-117 contains 1.22 g/t gold over 30 metres including 29.9 g/t gold over 1 metre.

Quentin Yarie, President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Pine stated, "Our on-going drilling program in the Minto Mine area is consistently discovering new zones of mineralization.  We are expanding the high-grade Minto Mine South Zone toward the historic Parkhill Mine (average grade 14.81 g/t) to the south. We believe additional zones of mineralization remain to be discovered, both in the Minto Mine South Zone and into the newly discovered Minto Mine Stockwork.  We will carry on drilling in the area in 2018 and we expect that our results will continue to validate our exploration model.”

MMSZ vs Minto Mine Stockwork
The Minto Mine Stockwork is a complex system of structurally controlled tensions veins forming a “halo” around the MMSZ.  Host rocks in the shoulders of the tension veins are weakly to moderately altered with sericite, silica and disseminated pyrite and pyrrhotite. The true thickness of the quartz veins forming the stockwork typically ranges from 10 centimetres to 1 metre.

Table 1. Highlights of the 2017 drilling results in the MMSZ

*Assay results reported over intersection length. In the Minto Mine South Zone, for SD-17-115 and SD-17-117, the intersection length is estimated to be >55% true width, for SD-17-114, the intersection length is estimated to represent >45% true width

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

Additional drilling is required to estimate the true width of the Minto stockwork.

Minto Mine Discovery Area
Red Pine’s drilling in the Minto Mine area continues to test the southern extension of the MMSZ and the existence of a network of quartz tension veins (stockwork) consisting of numerous mineralized quartz veins above and below the MMSZ. Drilling results in the MMSZ now extend the high-grade mineralization over a strike length of 375 metres.

In hole SD-17-117, the composited intersection that includes the stockwork and the MMSZ contains 1.44 g/t gold over 64 metres. This is indicating that a close spatial association between the Minto Stockwork mineralization and the Minto Mine South Zone can result in broad zones of gold mineralization. Additional drilling will be necessary to confirm the geometry of the Minto Stockwork.

Results for 26 boreholes in the Minto Mine South Zone are still pending. The zone remains open at depth and along strike (>1km) to the south. Five (5) additional drill holes are currently planned to further define its strike length and down-dip extension.

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 31,000 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.