Toronto-listed Marathon Gold’s stock jumped 12% on Monday, after the company reported its latest drill results from the Valentine gold project, in central Newfoundland.

The results are from nine drill holes completed in the new Berry zone, located in the 6-km-long Sprite Corridor.

The latest batch of drill assays from the new Berry zone included additional long intersections of high-grade mineralisation.

CEO Matt Manson said that the mineralisation occurred in a familiar geological setting: quartz-tourmaline-pyrite veining developed in the hanging-wall of the Valentine Lake Shear zone within ‘main zone’ type configurations. The drilling was establishing broad continuity between 50 m sections, and had extended the zone to about 650 m in strike length.

”Our 2020 exploration programme is focused on new discovery, with broad step out holes into previously untested areas,” he said in a statement.

Currently, one drill rig is progressing north-eastwards from Berry to the area of the ‘frozen ear pond road’, about 1.5 km from where drilling started in January. An additional drill rig is scheduled to be mobilised in early September, exploring south-westwards from the margin of the Marathon deposit towards frozen ear pond road.

“At the end of this campaign we will have drilling information along the full 6 km of the Sprite Corridor between Leprechaun and Marathon. This is high-risk, greenfield exploration, with no certainty of success. However, the results achieved to date at the Berry zone give confidence in the potential for additional discoveries along this highly prospective trend,” said Manson.

The drill result highlights include:

• VL-20-835 intersected 2.96 g/t over 47 m, including 7.55 g/t over 14 m, and 32.25 g/t over 1 m, and 27.00 g/t over 1 m;
• VL-20-834 intersected 2.23 g/t over 30 m, including 6.53 g/t over 8 m;
• VL-20-829 intersected 2.12 g/t over 20 m, including 16.89 g/t over 1 m, 2.26 g/t over 10 m, 1.03 g/t over 17 m, and 1.02 g/t over 11 m;
• VL-20-831 intersected 1.82 g/t over 10 m; and
• VL-20-830 intersected 0.93 g/t over 14 m.

Shares in Marathon traded 12.39% up at C$2.54 a share on Monday.