Marathon Gold announced the results of the final drill holes from the highly successful winter 2014 drilling campaign at the Sprite Zone, Valentine Lake property.

A total of 26 drill holes totaling 3,487m of NQ drill core, representing most of the winter drilling, were completed at the Sprite Zone.

This new Sprite drill area has yielded multiple wide, high-grade, near surface gold intervals and marks the beginning of concentrated exploration in this highly perspective quartz, tourmaline, pyrite (QTP)-gold rich zone located just 1.5 kilometers along strike NE of the Leprechaun Gold Deposit and proximal to the Valentine Lake thrust fault.

The Sprite gold area has a current strike length in excess of 500 meters and is open in all directions. Future trenching and drilling campaigns will focus along strike and down-dip on this promising new area of gold mineralization at the Valentine Lake property.

Highlights include:

Multiple, wide near-surface gold intercepts in recently announced drilling including: 2.80 g/t Au over 18.4 meters true thickness (TT) in VL-14-543, 2.53 g/t Au over 16.5 meters (TT) in VL-14-549, 2.20 g/t Au over 16.8 meters (TT) in VL-14-542, and 1.69 g/t Au over 24.0 meters (TT) in VL-14-552.

High-grade gold intercepts in recently announced drilling including: 5.35 g/t Au over 6.0 meters (TT) in VL-14-553, 4.38 g/t Au over 5.4 meters (TT) in VL-14-561, and 3.83 g/t Au over 5.6 meters (TT) in VL-14-554.

New near-surface wide QTP veining intervals with gold intercepts of 1.43 g/t Au over 6.0 meters (TT) including 8.95 g/t Au over 0.6 meters (TT) in VL-14-563, 1.60 g/t Au over 2.4 meters (TT) in VL-14-558, 0.66 g/t Au over 7.2 meters (TT) in VL-14-562, and 0.54 g/t Au over 11.5 meters (TT) in VL-14-564. These results are expanding the area of gold mineralizaton.

The new Sprite gold area has a proven strike length in excess of 500 meters and is currently open in all directions within an expansive alteration zone.

The coming summer drilling program is planned to focus on step-out and down-dip targeting in the Sprite area with the aim of expanding the boundaries of the new QTP-gold mineralization and continuing development of this new potential open pit resource at the Valentine Lake property. Additional drilling is planned for the Victory Gold deposit, other gold-bearing areas within the Sprite Zone where wide spaced historical and minor Marathon drilling has intercepted significant gold intervals, as well as other open-pit targets on the property.

A systematic exploration program of prospecting and trenching will be conducted during the coming summer focused along the entire Sprite Zone as well as north-east into the Marathon area where good gold values were found in extensive QTP-rich surface veining last year. The goal of this work is to define more future drilling targets for ongoing development of near-surface open pit resources in the Valentine Lake property.

"The success of our winter drilling at the newly discovered gold mineralization area in the Sprite Zone is a testimony to the effectiveness of our systematic approach to exploration and resource development which rapidly identified drill targets. Magnetic lows provide another important exploration tool as they help define splay faults that would have provided conduits for concentration of the mineralizing fluids during formation of the QTP-gold veining and alteration. The close proximity to the Leprechaun deposit makes Sprite a very important area for the development of additional resources at the Valentine Lake Property. We look forward to continued success with our summer 2014 drilling campaign planned for the Sprite Zone targeting additional current prospective drill targets. We also look forward to positive results from our ongoing summer program of detailed prospecting and trenching focused on other exploration targets along the Valentine Lake thrust and associated splay faults," said Phillip Walford , President and CEO of Marathon.