Marathon Gold Provides Progress Report on Major Earthworks at Valentine Gold Project

Tailings Dam Foundation at 78% Completion

TORONTO, Sept. 07, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Marathon Gold Corporation (“Marathon” or the “Company”; TSX: MOZ) is pleased to provide an update on construction at the Tailings Management Facility (“TMF”) of the Valentine Gold Project (the “Project”). The TMF is a major infrastructure element of the Project, and noteworthy advancement has been achieved during the summer construction season.

Matt Manson, President and CEO commented: “Over the last three months we have made significant construction progress at Valentine in each of our principal work-fronts: the process plant site, mine infrastructure, and our TMF. Process plant concrete foundations are well advanced, and the erection of structural steel for the mill building is expected to commence shortly. The main production haul road between the Leprechaun and Marathon pits has been completed and mining at Marathon has commenced. In August we surpassed 3 million tonnes of mined waste rock project-to-date, amply supporting our construction work.”

Mr. Manson continued: “In this news release, we are bringing particular attention to the progress being made at our Tailings Management Facility. As the largest civil construction undertaking of the Project, the timely completion of the TMF is an important element of the Project’s ultimate success. After a productive summer, we are well advanced with the construction of the rock foundation of the main TMF embankment, which is achieving its requisite engineering and geotechnical specifications. The steady progress of the TMF without major surprises significantly de-risks the construction of the overall Project. This is a noteworthy accomplishment of our contracting partners, JCL, AllRock and WSP, and our construction management team.”

Figure 1: Overview of TMF Construction, September 2, 2023

The Project’s TMF will be a thickened tailings facility with a capacity of 31.6 Mtonnes. It is formed by constructing a perimeter zoned rockfill embankment dam, which will be raised in 6 phases during the first 10 years of the Project. The upstream face of the dam will be lined with a geomembrane which is anchored into low-permeability foundation till, and which will extend approximately 100m upstream of the dam toe. The TMF is being constructed by the Project’s principal earthworks contractor JCL (Investments Inc.) of Cornerbrook, Newfoundland and Labrador. AllRock Ltd. performs quality control on-site material laboratory testing. WSP (formerly Golder Associates Ltd.) is the designer and engineer of record and provides on-site construction quality assurance services.