Auryn Drills Gold-Bearing Hydrothermal System at Committee Bay

Highlights:

• Discovery of the gold-bearing hydrothermal system at the Aiviq and Kalulik prospects
• Identifying that the system strengthens towards the southwest
• Sampling additional high-grade rock at Aiviq and Kalulik
• Identifying additional targets within the 20 km shear zone, hosting the Aiviq Shamrock and Kalulik prospects.

Executive Chairman and Director, Ivan Bebek:

 “Our ability to target hydrothermal systems under the 95% covered 300km Committee Bay gold belt has improved considerably. The southern-most drilled hole at Aiviq represents a significant opportunity to make a major discovery.

“As the company continues to advance Committee Bay exploration plans, several catalysts are pending including Homestake Ridge drill results, Gibson MacQuoid surface results and continuous news from the company’s highly active Sombrero project, where major copper-gold skarn and porphyry targets have recently been identified.”

Auryn also drilled 22 Rotary Air Blast (RAB) holes (4,135 meters) at the Kalulik and Aarluk prospects (Figures 1– 2), which identified two additional gold-bearing hydrothermal systems that have geological characteristics consistent with the Three Bluffs deposit. This demonstrates Auryn’s improved ability to target under till cover. The Kalulik and newly identified Shamrock prospects are south of Aiviq on the same shear zone.

Aiviq Summary:

The majority of the drill holes intersected 20 – 40 meter widths of intense quartz veining and sulphidized banded iron formations (Figures 5 – 9), which Auryn believes demonstrates the potential for a significant discovery along this regional fault zone.  Table 1 lists the complete results from the Aiviq core drill program. 

Due to the strength of the hydrothermal system observed along this regional fault zone, Auryn has further evaluated the high-resolution tills collected in 2017 and 2018 and has identified two high-priority drill targets along the Aiviq regional fault zone.  One of these targets is located four kilometers south of the 2018 drill program and has become known as the Shamrock prospect (Figure 2). The other is located 500 meters southeast of this year’s drill program (Figure 2) and is called Aiviq South. 

In addition to drilling, Auryn sampled a number of high-grade boulders down ice of the Aiviq prospect, further demonstrating the potential of this regional fault zone (Figure 3).  Highlights from the 2018 sampling include 26.3, 13.2 and 12 g/t gold. Table 2 includes a summary of these results.  Auryn’s technical team is currently evaluating the Aiviq South prospect as a potential source area of the high-grade boulder located down ice of the Aiviq prospect.  The Shamrock prospect is supported by high-grade boulders sampled historically with highlights including 12.89 and 7.61 g/t gold.

Kalulik Summary:

The Kalulik prospect is situated approximately 15 kilometers southwest of Aiviq along the same regional gold-bearing fault zone.  The 2018 drill program at Kalulik identified two separate gold-bearing hydrothermal systems, four kilometers apart, that intersected broad zones of low-grade mineralization over 10 – 20 meter widths within sulphidized banded iron formations and associated quartz veining (Figure 10).  These results include 21.34 meters at 0.4 g/t gold and 16.76 meters at 0.45 g/t gold. In addition, the identification of two separate gold-bearing structures speaks to the potential of the regional fault zone linking Aiviq and Kalulik.

Aarluk Summary:

At the Aarluk prospect the best intercept was 3.05 meters of 3.39 g/t gold, which was encountered in a weakly sulphidized banded iron formation.  Based on the geological characteristics observed, no further work is planned at the Aarluk prospect.

C.O.O. and Chief Geologist, Michael Henrichsen:

“We feel that we are in a productive gold system at Aiviq due to the strong alteration and fluid flow observed along this regional fault zone.  The strengthening of the widths and mineralization at the southwest limit, and the new high-resolution till anomaly at Shamrock, lead us to believe we should continue exploring along this regional fault zone. 

“In addition, the identification of three separate gold-bearing hydrothermal systems under cover at the Kalulik and Aiviq prospects indicate to us that our targeting process is leading us in the right direction. We drilled rocks that we believe have the necessary geologic characteristics to host a significant gold deposit.  The targets drilled this year represent a fraction of the opportunities still available at Committee Bay based on high-resolution till targets and historical drill intercepts that are still open for expansion.”

About Auryn

Auryn Resources is a technically driven junior mining exploration company focused on delivering shareholder value through project acquisition and development. The Company’s management team is highly experienced with an impressive track record of success and has assembled an extensive technical team as well as a premier gold exploration portfolio. Auryn is focused on scalable high-grade gold deposits in established mining jurisdictions, which include the Committee Bay and Gibson MacQuoid gold projects located in Nunavut, the Homestake Ridge gold project in British Columbia and a portfolio of gold projects in southern Peru, through Corisur Peru SAC.

Forward Looking Information and Additional Cautionary Language

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed “forward-looking statements”. Forward-looking information is information that includes implied future performance and/or forecast information including information relating to or associated with the acquisition and title to mineral concessions. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different (either positively or negatively) from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers should refer to the risks discussed in the Company’s Annual Information Form and MD&A for the year ended December 31, 2017 and subsequent continuous disclosure filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators available at www.sedar.com and the Company’s registration statement on Form 40-F filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and available at www.sec.gov.

The Toronto Stock Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Committee Bay RAB Drilling QA/QC Disclosure

CB DDH 2018:

Intercepts were calculated using a minimum of a 0.25 g/t Au cut off at beginning and end of the intercept and allowing for no more than six consecutive meters of less than 0.25 g/t Au.

Analytical samples were taken by sawing NQ diameter core into equal halves on site and sent one of the halves to ALS Lab in Yellowknife, NWT for preparation and then to ALS Lab in Vancouver, BC for analysis. All samples are assayed using 50g nominal weight fire assay with atomic absorption finish (Au-AA26) and multi-element four acid digest ICP-AES/ICP-MS method (ME-MS61). QA/QC programs using internal standard samples, field and lab duplicates and blanks indicate good accuracy. Due to the nuggety nature of mineralization encountered, the Company will be running additional analysis on duplicate samples to better understand the analytical precision.

True widths of mineralization are unknown based on current geometric understanding of the mineralized intervals

CB RAB 2018:

Intercepts were calculated using a minimum of a 0.25 g/t Au cut off at beginning and end of the intercept and allowing for no more than four consecutive samples (six meters) of less than 0.25 g/t Au.

Analytical samples were taken using 1/8 of each 5ft (1.52m) interval material (chips) and sent to ALS Lab in Yellowknife, NWT for preparation and then to ALS Lab in Vancouver, BC for analysis. All samples are assayed using 30g nominal weight fire assay with atomic absorption finish (Au-AA25) and multi-element four acid digest ICP-AES/ICP-MS method (ME-MS61). QA/QC programs using internal standard samples, field and lab duplicates and blanks indicate good accuracy and adequate precision in a large majority of standards assayed. 

True widths of mineralization are unknown based on current geometric understanding of the mineralized intervals.

CB Grabs 2018:

Approximately 1-2kg of material was collected for analysis and sent to ALS Lab in Vancouver, BC for preparation and analysis. All samples are assayed using 50g nominal weight fire assay with atomic absorption finish (Au-AA26) and multi-element four acid digest ICP-AES/ICP-MS method (ME-MS61). QA/QC programs for 2018 rock grab samples using internal standard samples, lab duplicates, standards and blanks indicate good accuracy and precision in a large majority of standards assayed. Grab samples are selective in nature and cannot be consider as representative of the underlying mineralization.