Abacus Provides Update on Jersey Valley

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 18, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Abacus Mining & Exploration Corporation (“Abacus” or the “Company”) (TSXV: AME) is pleased to provide an update on its Jersey Valley, Nevada gold property, acquired late last year.

The Jersey Valley property is believed to host epithermal precious metal mineralization, representative of the upper portions of a porphyry system. The property lies within the Battle Mountain trend of northern Nevada, in close proximity to both the Phoenix/Fortitude mine complex (approximately 14 Moz gold plus significant Ag and Cu past production and a proposed mine life to 2063) and the Cove/McCoy Mine (3.4 Moz gold and 110 Moz Ag past production). Past production data is from the Newmont Mines and Premier Gold Mines websites. The reader is cautioned that the mineralization hosted on nearby properties is not necessarily indicative of mineralization hosted on the Company’s Jersey Valley gold property.

The Company has completed a review of past exploration data on the property, which mainly consists of soil and rock geochemistry, some ground geophysics and a widely spaced program of shallow Reverse Circulation Drilling plus limited Diamond Drilling. Some of the databases are incomplete, especially drill data from the 1980’s. Past drilling on the property was widespread and shallow. One drill hole ended in 245 feet of pyritic, silicified sediments that assayed 265 ppb Au and 3.28 g/t Ag. The Company believes that past drilling was not deep enough to adequately test the system.

The Company has now decided on a field program on the property, that is intended to better define drill targets. This will involve a program of mapping and rock sampling, with a concurrent program of ground geophysics, which is scheduled to start as soon as the property is accessible this spring. The Jersey Valley property has a well-maintained sealed road running through it, which provides access to a 15 MW geothermal power plant located on the edge of the claim group.

The purpose of the sampling program is to collect a suite of rock samples to be analyzed by spectral analysis for multiple elements. Epithermal systems contain a diagnostic suite of alteration elements, the identification of which can narrow down drill targets, especially in combination with existing data on the property. Spectral analysis worked well at the Company’s Willow Cu-Mo porphyry project near Yerington, Nevada. Many of the same type of hydrothermal processes active at depth in a porphyry system such as Willow, are also thought to be present at Jersey Valley, but at much shallower depths.