Marathon Drills High-Grade at Marathon Deposit & Sprite Zone Bog: 14.68 g/t Au over 8 meters & 4.11 g/t Au over 7 meters, Valentine Lake Gold Camp, Newfoundland

Highlights:

Marathon’s exploration drilling continues to return exciting results with high grade gold intercepts in step-out drill holes at the Marathon Deposit and Sprite Zone bog area (Figure 1). Marathon Deposit hole MA-18-285 intersected 14.68 g/t Au over 8.0 meters at depth within an area of little previous drilling (Figure 2). Sprite Zone bog hole VL-18-661 intersected 4.11 g/t Au over 7.0 meters at shallow depths. The 2018 Sprite Zone bog drilling confirms the presence of en-echelon QTP veining with good gold grades over a 1000-meter strike length. Assays are pending for drill holes that intersected significant QTP veining with visible gold at both the Marathon Deposit and Sprite Zone bog area.

• 14.68 g/t Au over 8.0 meters with 35.52 g/t Au over 3.0 meters in MA-18-285 (Figure 2). This intersection demonstrates the occurrence and potential for more high-grade gold for more than 700 meters along southwest along strike from the existing Marathon underground resource.
  
  
• 2.30 g/t Au over 6.0 meters with 7.05 g/t Au over 1.0 meter in MA-18-283
  
  
• 4.11 g/t Au over 7.0 meters with 11.18 g/t Au over 2.0 meters in VL-18-661
  
  
• The 15,000-meter winter drilling campaign is complete. Assays are pending on 7 Sprite bog holes and 6 Marathon holes.
  
  
• The PEA is progressing on schedule with a projected release in Q2 2018.

TORONTO, April 04, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Marathon Gold Corp. (“Marathon” or the “Company”) (TSX:MOZ) Marathon Gold Corp. is pleased to announce these exciting new drill results at the company’s 100% owned Valentine Lake Gold Camp, central Newfoundland. The drill holes MA-18-283 to MA-18-285 successfully intersected good gold mineralization in an area of previous limited drilling and located up to 700 meters southwest along strike of the current main Marathon Deposit open pit (Figures 1). The drill holes VL-18-661 to VL-18-663 succeeded in intersecting near-surface QTP veining with excellent gold grades, extending the strike length of known gold mineralization to more than 1000-meters along the Sprite Zone bog area.

“The positive results from the step out drilling at both the Marathon Deposit and the Sprite Zone bog area demonstrates the potential discovery of additional resources along this large-scale gold system,” said Phillip Walford, President and CEO. “Our winter drilling program has continued to penetrate new high-grade gold mineralization at the Sprite bog area, within the Marathon Deposit and along strike southwest of the Marathon deposit. The summer 2018 drilling will target these exciting new high grade and high-potential targeted areas as we continue to increase gold resources. This property just keeps delivering for us!”

TABLE 1: Significant assay intervals, Marathon Deposit & Sprite Zone Bog, Valentine Lake.

*Fire Assays cut to 45 g/t Au

Figure 1: Location of drill hole collars MA-18-283 to MA-18-285, Marathon Deposit and VL-18-661 to VL-18-663, Sprite Zone bog area. http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/910bb48b-7007-4f11-aa08-1e29affb2ccf

Figure 2: MA-18-285, high-grade intercept of 14.68 g/t Au over 8.0 m at 350 m depth from surface. http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/136178bd-f6a0-4c58-90e6-8b7159aa4fef

Acknowledgments

Marathon acknowledges the financial support of the Junior Exploration Assistance Program, Department of Natural Resources, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Quality Assurance-Quality Control (“QA/QC”)

Sherry Dunsworth, M.Sc., P. Geo., Senior VP of Exploration, Marathon’s Qualified Person, has reviewed the contents for accuracy and has approved this press release on behalf of Marathon. Thorough QA/QC protocols are followed including the insertion of blanks and standards at regular intervals in each sample batch. Drill core is cut in half with one half retained at site, the other half tagged and sent to Eastern Analytical Limited in Springdale, Newfoundland. All reported core samples are analyzed for Au by fire assay (30g) with AA finish (Au circuit ISO 17025 Accredited). All samples above 0.10 g/t Au in economically interesting intervals are further assayed using metallic screen to mitigate the presence of coarse gold. Significant mineralized intervals are reported in Table 1 as core lengths and estimated true thickness (75-80% of core length).

About Marathon

Marathon is a Toronto based gold exploration company rapidly advancing its 100% owned Valentine Lake Gold Camp located in Newfoundland, one of the top mining jurisdictions in the world. The Valentine Lake Gold Camp currently hosts four near-surface, mainly pit-shell constrained, deposits with measured and indicated resources totaling 1,846,500 oz. of gold at 1.88 g/t and inferred resources totaling 1,011,700 oz. of gold at 1.65 g/t. The majority of the resources occur in the Marathon and Leprechaun deposits, which also have resources below the pit shell. Both deposits are open to depth and on strike. Gold mineralization has been traced down over 350 metres vertically at Leprechaun and almost a kilometer at Marathon. The four deposits outlined to date occur over a 20-kilometer system of gold bearing veins, with much of the 24,000-hectare property having had little detailed exploration activity to date. Drilling in winter 2018 is continuing to focus on expanding the Marathon Deposit at surface and to depth as well as exploration drilling along the boggy covered area between the Marathon and Sprite Deposits.

The Valentine Lake Gold Camp is accessible by year-round road and is located in close proximity to Newfoundland’s electrical grid. Marathon maintains a 50-person all-season camp at the property. Recent metallurgical tests have demonstrated 93% to 98% recoveries via conventional milling and 50% to 70% recoveries via low cost heap leaching at both the Leprechaun and Marathon Deposits.

To find out more information on the Valentine Lake Gold Camp please visit www.marathon-gold.com.

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