Bullfrog Gold to Drill Klondike Silver Project in Nevada

05.05.2014  |  GlobeNewswire

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo., May 5, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bullfrog Gold Corp. (BFGC:OTCQB) ("Bullfrog" or the "Company") is pleased to announce receipt of funding and plans to complete shallow drilling and scoping metallurgical test programs at its Klondike Silver Project ("Project") located 40 miles north of Eureka, Nevada. Drilling is scheduled to be completed by July 2014. Initial metallurgical tests are scheduled to start soon after final assay results are received and should be completed by mid-September 2014.

Exploration Drilling

At least 50 vertical and angled holes will be percussion drilled to average depths of 100 feet to explore shallow oxide mineralization identified within an area approximately 3,000 feet wide and 5,000 feet long. Drilling will focus on five specific areas having the greatest potential and ease of access, namely the Glory Hole/Lion Kill, Black Lizard, Copper Hill, Cougar Hill and Old Whalen Mine. These holes were located based on geochemical sampling and surface reconnaissance work completed by the Company and study of a historic geology report. Maps showing these five exploration targets and claim holdings along with cross sections through the Glory Hole and Black Lizard areas may be viewed on the website www.bullfroggold.com.

Surface Sampling

During the past few years 156 geochemical samples have been collected on the Klondike property with average contents of 32 ppm silver, 1.3 % zinc, 0.8 % lead, 0.16% copper, 9 ppm molybdenum and anomalous gold and gallium contents. These surface assays compare well with geochemical anomalies over major world silver-zinc deposits such as San Cristobal in Bolivia, Penasquito in Mexico and the new discovery of Cordero in Mexico.

Deeper Exploration Potential

The Company and others believe that another enriched silver zone may also occur near the water table, which may be 400 to 500 feet deep. In this regard, the oxide zone transitions to primary sulfides and presents deeper exploration targets below the water table.

It is also postulated that a molybdenum-bearing intrusive at depths greater than 1,000 feet may have served as the heat source of the mineralized solutions that created the shallow Klondike deposits. Furthermore, the Klondike mineralized corridor has significant anomalous molybdenum contents as well as strong silver, lead, zinc and copper anomalies within an area approximately 3,000 feet wide and 7,000 feet along strike.

Historic Geology Report

Substantial information was obtained from a 1977 geology report that was authored by William Van der Ley, a geologist who lived on the property during the 1970's and explored it for Sundown Mining Co. Van der Ley performed extensive surface reconnaissance, collected 160 samples, mapped accessible underground workings and supervised shallow drilling and trenching programs. This 1977 report and summaries from programs completed in 1978 and 1979 require validation as the sampling and assaying protocols are not available and the information was obtained before current US and international QA/QC standards were established. Nonetheless, the Company has no reason to dismiss any of Van der Ley's work and it serves as a useful and encouraging guide for exploring the property. Key excerpts of the report are summarized below:

1977 Report

• Secondary silver shows best a few feet below leached caprock and may spread tens to hundreds of feet in the wall rocks. While surface samples of zinc may only show 200 to 300 ppm, zinc may average 2% at 10 feet deep, 3% at 24 feet and up to 5% at 50 to 100 feet deep. Locally at depth, lead and zinc may reach 10% to 35%.
  
• Silver assays on Copper Hill commonly range from 10 to 20 ounces per ton (opt). Much of the better grade is five feet thick and spreads across the 300-foot wide mineralized zone. Smithsonite occurs east of Copper Hill in well-defined veins that range from 10% to 35% zinc and 3% to 16% lead.
  
• An altered sandstone horizon in the Eureka quartzite is an important exploration target and may reach 30 opt silver with lead from 35 to 16%. At Cougar Hill, the altered Eureka sandstone is about 30 feet thick.
  
• A black zinc sulfide (sphalerite) vein 15 feet wide outcrops in upper Two Mile Canyon and has minor oxidation.
  
• Barite is of economic importance and some high grade white lenses are 6 to 20 feet wide and assay 90% barite with a SG of 4.36, which may be direct shipping quality. Barite occurs dominantly in the SE part of the property may locally be 50% of the country rock.
  
• The vein at the Old Whalen No.3 shaft contains up to 16% lead, 5 to 8 opt silver plus copper. Two pits to the south contain up to 22% lead and several opt silver.
  
• The longest adit in the area is 170 feet into Cougar Hill and intersected a 4-5 foot vein that assays 2.8% copper, high lead and zinc and up to 8 opt silver.
  
• The Silver Belle mine near the crest of the Sulphur Springs Range contains massive barite and 5 to 8% lead. Silver runs about 13 opt but the ore mined probably was higher grade. The mineralized zone is over 100-feet wide.
  
• The only drill data available is from hole KX13-1, which is near the Glory Hole area and bottomed in strong silver mineralization. Note the much higher grades below the thin leached caprock.

Interval, ft	Silver, ppm	Silver, opt	Description
0 - 5	3	0.1	Caprock
5 - 10	63	1.8	Altered, soft, porous barite
10 - 15	113	3.3	"
15 - 20	205	6.0	"
20 - 25	180	5.3	"

• Shallow mineralization of all types could potentially exceed 30 million tons.

1978 Exploration Program

• Shallow drilling, trenching and underground mapping shows mineralization to be much more extensive than previously thought.
  
• Lead sulfide occurs near surface within fissure veins traceable for thousands of feet through the barite zone. Lenses as well as veins often exceed 20 feet in width. All lead sulfide and oxide are silver-bearing and disseminated silver invariably extends tens of feet into the wall rocks of barite and altered dolomite.
  
• One outcrop is continuously mineralized over a width of 90 feet. The same outcrop is estimated to contain 1 to 5 opt silver. The outcrop on the North Fork of Alli Creek, one mile to the north, forms part of a mineralized belt 300 feet wide.
  
• Most mineralized sandstone remains to be drilled. None of the drilling to date exceeded 200 feet. The sandstone is probably the most important, both as to grade and potential volume. Mineralization from a few known but widely separated exposures shows 10 - 30 opt silver and up to 35% lead.

1979 Exploration Program

• Large new areas of lead-zinc mineralization were added to potential mineralization, which now is estimated in excess of 30 million tons.
  
• Perhaps the most significant development was discovery of a fluorite fissure striking NW through the western claims over a distance of 1.5 miles. The presence of a steep-dipping fluorite zone confirms the belief that the district is underlain by a shallow intrusive.

Metallurgical Testing

As there have been no metallurgical tests performed on Klondike mineralization, a scoping test program is scheduled to be completed by mid-September 2014. During the past fifteen years there have been many advances in the processing of oxide lead-zinc ores and such technologies will be applied in the proposed test program. Appropriate tests will also be performed to recover barite as a potential byproduct as the Klondike mineralization may contain up to 50% barite.

Markets of Potential Byproducts

Although silver is the focus of the Klondike Project, the fundamental supply, demand and pricing of lead, zinc, copper and barite markets are solid. Gold contents to date are low but expansive over most of the mineralized zones. Below are selected brief comments on three of the potential byproducts:

• Forty-seven percent of global zinc production is used for protecting steel against corrosion (galvanizing). The largest refined zinc producer and consumer in 2012 was China at 38% and 43% respectively.
  
• Eighty percent of lead is used for producing electricity storage batteries, mainly for vehicles and mobile equipment. China is also the largest lead producer at 50% of 2012 production.
  
• Barite is primarily used for drilling mud in the global oil and gas industry and its demand and price (approx. $180 per ton) have risen accordingly. World production in 2013 was 8.5 million tonnes of which 45% came from China, 18% from India and only 8% from the USA. The USA consumed 32% of world barite production.

About the Klondike Project

The Alpha Mining District was organized about 1877 and by the early 1900's shipped small tonnages of high grade ore to smelters in Salt Lake City, Utah. Since then the district has been idle but was evaluated in detail in the 1970's by Van der Ley. In 2012 the Company optioned the property and expanded the land position to 232 mining claims that cover most of the Alpha Mining District. This claimed area is nearly 4,640 acres and is approximately 5 miles north-south and 1.5 miles east-west.

Numerous shallow prospect and shafts and short adits on the Klondike claims are located primarily in the lower elevations of the west side of the Sulphur Springs Mountain range in Paleozoic lower plate carbonates and siliciclastics in NE trending fault breccia zones. The western part of the area may be a structural outlier from the main range front fault. This outlier is a much dissected faulted section of lower Paleozoic rocks in fault contact with the upper plate units of the Roberts Mountain Thrust.

About Bullfrog Gold Corp.

Bullfrog Gold Corp. is a Delaware corporation that started trading on the over-the-counter bulletin board market on October 17, 2011 under the symbol BFGC. The Company also controls the Bullfrog Gold Project located 3 miles west of Beatty, Nevada and the Newsboy Gold Project located 45 miles NW of Phoenix, Arizona.

The Company continues to seek and selectively pursue acquisitions and business opportunities, but there are no assurances that such transactions can be completed or integrated with the Company's endeavors. More information on the Company and its projects may be obtained from www.BullfrogGold.com, or by emailing info@BullfrogGold.com.

The Bullfrog Gold Corp. logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=16223

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This press release may contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including those with respect to the objectives, plans and strategies of the Company and those preceded by or that include the words "believes," "expects," "given," "targets," "intends," "anticipates," "plans," "projects," "forecasts" or similar expressions, are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. The Company is presently an exploration stage company. Exploration is highly speculative in nature, involves many risks, requires substantial expenditures and may not result in the discovery of sufficient mineral deposits that can be mined profitably. Further the price of minerals and resources is highly volatile. The Company currently has no reserves on any of its properties. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), not limited to Risk Factors relating to its business and properties contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. As a result, this press release should be read in conjunction with the Company's periodic filings with the SEC. The Companies filings are available at www.sec.gov.

David Beling, President & CEO
(970) 628 - 1670