High Desert Gold Corporation Completes Phase 1 Diamond Drilling Program at the Canasta Dorada Property in Sonora, Mexico: Financial News

High Desert Gold Corporation Completes Phase 1 Diamond Drilling Program at the Canasta Dorada Property in Sonora, Mexico
Tuesday May 20, 2:25 pm ET

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(MARKET WIRE)--May 20, 2008 -- High Desert Gold Corporation (Toronto:HDG.TO - News)(Toronto:HDG-WT.TO - News) ("HDG" or the "Company") announces that it has completed the Phase 1 diamond drill program at the Canasta Dorada gold project, Sonora Mexico. The recently completed program consisted of 33 diamond drill holes of which 16 have been previously reported. This press release reports the results of 11 drill holes, leaving results from six drill holes still pending.

These drill results have expanded the area with gold mineralization in the "Big Pit Area". Notable intercepts in this round of results are from drill holes CD-07-013A and CD-08-027:

 

------------------------------------------------
Drill Hole   From     To   Length          Gold
             -----    ---  -------         -----
               (m)    (m)      (m)   grade (g/t)
               ---    ---      ---   -----------

------------------------------------------------
CD-07-013A    0.0   25.5     25.5         1.087
------------------------------------------------
including     0.0    9.0      9.0         1.784
------------------------------------------------
              and
------------------------------------------------
             15.0   23.5      8.5         1.206
------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------
CD-08-27        0      4        4         1.385
------------------------------------------------

Ralph Fitch, President of the Company, stated "The results to date have outlined an outcropping zone of approximately 400 metres by 150 metres in surface extent and 15 metres thick that remains open-ended towards the south-west. Equally importantly, our reconnaissance exploration has now found what appears to be the same low angle structural setting three kilometres to the west of our current drilling, opening up a very large exploration play with multiple targets and target sizes."

Mineralization in the "Big Pit Area" now includes two components of near surface mineralization:

1.) Surface channel samples from rock exposed in trenches which averaged 1.2 gpt gold (PR07-03, Oct 19, 2007) These results contained many 1-4 metre intervals in the 2-4 gpt gold range; and

2.) Gold intercepts reported from the recently completed drilling program which typically were collared at the bottom of these trenches and so do not include the zone of higher-grade surface material and therefore may understate the average grade of the entire zone.

This combination of surface channel sampling and drilling has now delineated an open ended block of approximately 400 metres by 150 metres in the "Big Pit" area. The holes drilled to date show an average grade of the samples of 0.7 gpt gold over an average thickness of 15.5 metres. However, to obtain a more accurate representation of the average gold value for this block, the drill and surface results must be combined. With the present density of surface sampling it is difficult to estimate an exact overall average grade of the combined surface and drilled material but it appears likely to exceed the 0.7 gpt reported from the drill holes alone, as the average grade of all surface samples is 1.2 gpt.

The average mineralized width and gold grade of the following holes in the approximately 450 metre by 150 metre block in the "Big Pit Area" is as follows:

 

----------------------------------------------------------------
                Average Width          Average Gold Grade (g/t)
                      (metres)
----------------------------------------------------------------
   "Big Pit"             15.5                              0.7
Mineralization
----------------------------------------------------------------
Includes Drill         CD-001,2,6,7,8,10,11,12,13,13A,14, 27
    Holes        The average width in these holes varies from 8-
                 31 metres and the average grade from 0.2 to 2.1
                                     gpt gold
----------------------------------------------------------------

Every hole that the Company has drilled into this low angle structural zone has contained anomalous gold values and HDG reconnaissance has now found this same structural environment more than three kilometres to the west and one kilometre to the east of the Big Pit area. This comprises a very large target area within the important gold hosting environment near the ductile-brittle structural transition.

Reconnaissance efforts are ongoing on the large land position, which HDG controls in northern Sonora with several areas having been identified for follow up work. The evaluation of this 448 square kilometre land package will continue over the coming months and HDG is confident that additional targets will be generated for follow up efforts. The Company's plan is to complete the next stage of reconnaissance exploring for potentially thicker intervals of mineralization within the low angle structural setting and then conduct an RC (reverse circulation) drill program tentatively set for the fall. Now that target geology has been better defined by core drilling, the addition of RC techniques should allow for faster and cheaper testing of the numerous targets that HDG has added.

The Company has recently also observed a possible coarse gold, or "nugget effect" sampling phenomenon at Canasta Dorada. This is based on the re-assaying of several intervals of drill core for check sampling, and the assay results from holes CD-07-013 and CD-07-013A, which are twin holes. The collars of these two holes are approximately 1 metre apart, at the same elevation, and they have the identical azimuth/inclination. The down-hole geology is essentially the same. However, the assay results are quite different (see comparison below) and may imply a potential upside to the drilling program to date:

 

Hole #      From (m)  To (m)  Length (m)  Gold grade (g/t)
------      -------   ------  ----------  ----------------
CD-07-013       2.3    20.0        17.7             0.449

CD-07-013A      0.0    25.5        25.5             1.087

The Company is currently developing a sampling program to determine the extent of the coarse gold sampling phenomenon, which will include re-assaying the coarse rejects from the core samples using a much larger sample size, both from previous samples and in the future programs. These tests may lead to a re-evaluation of gold grades intersected in the previously reported drilling program.

The remaining holes in the Placer and Pique Viejo areas to the south of the "Big Pit Area" all intersected narrow intervals of low grade gold mineralization typically in the 0.1 -0.5 gpt gold range with occasional greater than 1 gpt assays on individual samples. These results continue to show that we are in a large area of gold mineralization requiring further exploration to pinpoint areas of higher grade and thicknesses.

The Company is a mineral exploration company that acquires and explores mineral properties, primarily gold, copper and silver, in North America. The three major properties held by HDG are the flagship Canasta Dorada gold property in Sonora, Mexico, the Gold Lake porphyry copper-gold-molybdenum property in New Mexico and the Monitor copper-silver property in Arizona.

Assays at Canasta Dorada were performed by International Plasma Laboratories ("IPL") and ALS Chemex ("ALS") , both ISO 9001:2000 certified laboratories. Gold is analyzed by the G313 method (IPL) and Au-AA23 method (ALS) that includes fire assay of a 30 g sample with an AA finish.

The Qualified Person on the Canasta Dorada project is George Klemmick, Exploration Manager and a certified professional geologist. He has reviewed the content of this press release.

Please see High Desert Gold Corporation's website, www.highdesertgoldcorp.com, for maps and drill hole locations.

Certain statements contained herein constitute "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements look into the future and provide an opinion as to the effect of certain events and trends on the business. Forward-looking statements may include words such as "plans," "intends," "anticipates," "should," "estimates," "expects," "believes," "indicates," "targeting," "suggests," "potential," "interpretation" and similar expressions. Information concerning the interpretation of drill results also may be considered forward-looking statements, as such information constitutes a prediction of what mineralization might be found to be present if and when a project is actually developed. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and entail various risks and uncertainties. Actual results may materially differ from expectations, if known and unknown risks or uncertainties affect our business, or if our estimates or assumptions prove inaccurate. Except as required by law, HDG assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or any other reason.