Seabridge Gold Drilling Builds Resource Potential

TORONTO - Seabridge Gold announced today additional results from this year's drill program at its 100% owned KSM Project in northwestern British Columbia, Canada.  Results from the Iron Cap Lower Zone continue to outline a major new gold-copper discovery beneath Iron Cap, one of KSM's four large porphyry deposits. Data from eight new holes released and seven holes announced previously are expected to support an initial resource estimate for the Iron Cap Lower Zone scheduled for Q1, 2015.

Commenting on the news, Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk noted that "we are just beginning to define the size and shape of the Lower Zone at Iron Cap. Thus far, we have traced the deposit along a strike length of about 750 meters but the limits have not been found to the north and at depth. Drill grades are running higher than the average reserve grade for the Iron Cap zone found above. The highest grade areas are in the north, where IC-14-059 intersected a spectacular 592.7 meters averaging 1.14 grams per tonne of gold and 0.37% copper," Fronk said.

Since 2012, Seabridge's exploration focus at KSM has been to look for higher grade core zones beneath the project's large porphyry deposits. Core zones are typically formed under higher temperature and pressure conditions, resulting in a mineralogical character typically associated with significantly higher metal content. The first core zone discovery was made last year beneath the Kerr porphyry, where drilling defined a large copper-rich deposit called Deep Kerr.  A second core zone was discovered this summer below the Iron Cap porphyry. Both Deep Kerr and the Iron Cap Lower Zone have the characteristics typical of core zones, with higher grades than the porphyry deposits above them. Drilling this summer has focused on both of these discoveries with the aim of increasing the existing resource estimate at Deep Kerr and generating an initial resource estimate below Iron Cap. Several other core zone targets are also being drilled.

The Iron Cap Lower Zone is a series of related, intermediate-composition intrusions, each with a unique alteration mineral assemblage including potassic, phyllic, and silicic alteration, all of which contain copper, gold and silver. Drill holes that targeted the southwestern and southeastern strike projections of the target zone (IC-14-053, 054, 054A, 055 and 057) penetrated numerous intrusive events where variable grade is enhanced in the contact zones between these intrusions. The holes drilled along the northern strike projection (IC-14-056, 058, 059, 060, 061) encountered more consistent intrusive rock with much less grade variability. Hydrothermal alteration in these holes to the north exhibit vertical continuity over the 1,000 meters tested so far, indicating significant potential at depth, particularly down an apparent north-northwest plunge. Future work at Iron Cap will focus on this orientation to look for more of the higher grade material found in IC-14-059.