Meridian Defines Initial Exploration Target of 3.2 - 7.3 mt @ 3.0 - 3.2 g/t AuEq at Santa Helena

Exploration Target is contained within only 1.4km of the ~3km prospective trend

LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / December 5, 2023 / Accesswire / Meridian Mining UK S (TSX:MNO)(OTCQX:MRRDF)(Frankfurt:2MM)(Tradegate:2MM) ("Meridian" or the "Company") is pleased to report that it has assessed the geological potential of the Santa Helena mine area ("Santa Helena") based on new and historical data, generating an initial Exploration Target with a tonnage range of 3.2 -7.2 Mt grading between 3.0 - 3.2g/t AuEq* , which gives a potential high-grade metal inventory range of between 306,000 to 763,000 AuEq ounces, located within 10km of the proposed Cabaçal mill site ¹ .

The Company is also reporting further strong intercepts at Santa Helena including CD-359: 36.6m @ 1.3g/t AuEq from 13.0m; and CD-378: 5.9m @ 5.5g/t AuEq from 38.3m. These follow early positive results ² from the Company's verification and extensional drilling program, and now highlight an expansion of Santa Helena's mineralization across strike, and at depths suitable to open pit development potential. Further drill results remain pending.

Highlights Reported Today

• Meridian reports Exploration Target for Santa Helena mine area of 3.2 - 7.2 Mt @ 3.0 - 3.2g/t AuEq ;
  • Exploration Target's contained metal is between 306,000 to 763,000 AuEq ounces ;
  • Mineralization grades 1.0 - 1.1g/t Au, 0.7 - 0.8 % Cu, 20.0 - 26.3 g/t Ag and 2.8 - 3.0 % Zn;
  • Exploration target restricted to 1.4km of the ~3km prospective trend;
• Santa Helena's drilling expands and confirms shallow VMS Au, Cu, Ag and Zn mineralization;
  • CD-359: 36.6m @ 1.3g/t AuEq (0.6g/t Au, 0.4% Cu, 8.4g/t Ag & 0.8% Zn) from 13.0m;

Including :

• 9.4m @ 1.9g/t AuEq (1.3g/t Au, 0.6% Cu, 15.1g/t Ag & 0.5% Zn) from 13.0m;
  • CD-378: 5.9m @ 5.5g/t AuEq (1.9g/t Au, 1.3% Cu, 33.5g/t Ag & 5.6% Zn) from 38.3m; and
• Expansion of drilling into Santa Helena's prospective ~2km eastern extension is planned for 2024.

* The potential quantity and grade of an Exploration Target is conceptual in nature. There has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource, and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the target being delineated as a mineral resource. The metal equivalence formula is based on the historical Santa Helena resource report ³ , calculated as AuEq based on gold being the dominant metal of the Cabaçal VMS camp, as the expectation is that Santa Helena's mineralization will be evaluated for processing through a centralized facility at the Cabaçal mill with the addition of a zinc circuit. True width is considered to be 80 to 90% of intersection width.

Mr. Gilbert Clark, CEO, comments: "Today Meridian continues to confirm the tremendous value upside opportunity that the Cabaçal belt presents. Santa Helena's high-grade Exploration Target of 306,000 to 763,000 ounces of gold equivalent, within a small tonnage and high-grade ranges, presents a very exciting upside opportunity for both the Cabaçal belt and for Meridian's shareholders."

"Looking to the medium term growth plans, utilizing a robust Exploration Target and continuing strong drill results, we will evaluate Santa Helena's potential for contributing additional high-grade mineralization to Cabaçal's future. Being within ten km of the advanced Cabaçal Mine project, if ongoing work at Santa Helena proves successful, future economic studies will not need to carry the capital expenditure of building a stand-alone mill. After a great year of advancement of the Cabaçal belt in 2023, including the submission of the Cabaçal mine's Preliminary Licence Application, we look forward to the further strong progress in 2024."

Santa Helena Initial Exploration Target

The Santa Helena mine area provides for the continuation of Meridian's low-risk investment model of targeting prospects with a high degree of potential and untested upside. A robust geological and mineralization model has been achieved by incorporating the results from historical drill campaigns, geology, and mining records, with Merdian's recent results from diamond drilling, trenching, mapping and geophysical surveys. This, with the removal of the limited mined areas, was then used as the basis for the reasonable ranges of tonnes and contained metals defined within the Exploration Target.

The VMS mineralization has been modelled and the plan view ("Figure 1") shows a strong correlation to the historical geological maps and reports. The long sections indicate that the mineralization again strongly follows the known geology of a continuous mineralized trend ("Figure 2").

Figure 1: Upper Range Santa Helena Upper Range Exploration target footprint in relation to the historical resource outline.

The Santa Helena database consists of data generated from multiple campaigns of surface and underground drilling and sampling, summarized as follows:

Table 1: Summary of Santa Helena Exploration Target database.

Surface drilling and locally trenching to the east was historically conducted on nominally 50 x 25 m spaced sections along a strike length of ~ 1,350m, with a cross-strike footprint of ~130 -220m, with some outlying holes. Spacing was not always regular, and a combination of vertical and inclined holes were drilled. Sectional azimuth varied from 10 to 35 degrees across the deposit. Meridian has since concluded 1,258m of drilling including 6 twin holes and 18 resource delineation holes within and outside the historical resource envelope. The model utilizes 14 of Meridian's holes (731.1 m of drilling) for which results were available.

Figure 2: Top: long section looking north of Lower Range Exploration Target (after depletion), Bottom long section looking north of Upper Range Exploration Target (after depletion).

Geological modelling was completed generating a mineralization wireframe at a 0.3g/t AuEq cut-off grade, consistent with the resource cut-off grade of the Cabaçal deposit. Modelling of key lithologies included bounding post-mineralization gabbro sills which are present in the footwall and hangingwall of the deposit. A block model constrained by the interpreted mineralized bodies was constructed with the parent cell size of 10 mE x 10 mN x 5 mRL. Drillhole sample intervals have been composited to 1 m length and were used to interpolate all main modelled grades (Zn, Pb, Cu, Au, Ag) into the block model using inverse distance ² and ordinary kriging (OK) interpolation techniques. Block grades were validated both visually and statistically and all modelling was completed using Leapfrog software.

To estimate the grades inside of the 0.3g/t AuEq cut-off grade wireframe, 1,644 samples of Au, 1,715 of Cu, 1,606 of Ag, 1,745 of Zn and 1,714 of Pb were used. For the lower limit of the exploration target, the unsampled drilling intervals were replaced by zero grade. Meridian's drilling indicates that like at the Cabaçal mine, areas of mineralization were left unsampled due to a particular commodity or development focus. For the upper limit, the unsampled intervals were omitted and the wireframe projected along a trend considered reasonable based on geometry and geological logging.

The search radius used was 70m x 70m x 10m for the major, semi-major and minor axes respectively, the same used to classify inferred resources in the Cabaçal deposit, with restrictions of a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 10 samples. For the interpolation of the grades, dynamic anisotropy was used with the geometry of a synclinal fold plunging up-plunge towards the east-south-east.

To evaluate the reconciliation of the Exploration Target with historical mining production of the vendors, Prometálica, the block model was resized to 4 mE x 4 mN x 2 mRL to better adhere to the geometry of the mining void. The difference in the estimated tonnage was -0.6%, and for the grades the variation was, +9.3% for Au, +4.5% for Cu, -2.9% for Ag, and -5.7% for Zn ("Table 2"). Lead production was not reported and is currently not contributing to the metal equivalence formula. Production is based on the historical digital archives of the Run-of-Mine monthly records of the Prometálica geology department, from October 2006 to August 2008. These Run-of-Mine production figures closely align with the modelled estimate, providing confidence in the Exploration Target's potential. The estimated range in tonnage and grade for the Exploration Target after mining depletion are 3.2 -7.2 Mt @ 3.0 - 3.2 g/t AuEq / 2.0 - 2.2% CuEq (1.0 - 1.1 g/t Au, 0.7 - 0.8% Cu, 20.0 - 26.3 g/t Ag & 2.8 - 3.0 % Zn; "Table 3"; "Table 4"). Metal equivalence is based on the historical SRK resource report, with metal prices applied from the Meridian's Cabaçal PEA dated March 6, 2023 (AuEq = (Au(g/t) * 65%Recovery) + (1.492Cu% * 89%Recovery) + (0.474Zn% * 89%Recovery)) + (0.008Ag(g/t) * 61%Recovery)). Recovery formulas will be updated with future testwork programs.

Table 2: Comparison of the model with Run of Mine production records of Santa Helena.

Table 3: Exploration Target for the Santa Helena Deposit, with recovery-factored gold equivalent and copper equivalent content. Individual metal grades are pre-recovery.

* Lead production was not officially reported, but figures indicated based on metallurgical feed reports aligning well with modeled calculation. Lead does not contribute to the metal equivalence formula.