Mr. Stephen Nano reports

ALTAZOR GOLD PROJECT UPDATE: MIRASOL RECEIVES OPTION PAYMENT AS NEWCREST EXERCISES FARM-IN STAGE OF THE ALTAZOR AGREEMENT, AND REPORTS EXPLORATION RESULTS FROM FIRST SEASON EXPLORATION

Newcrest International Pty. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Newcrest Mining Ltd., has exercised its option to enter the farm-in stage of the Altazor agreement, triggering a $500,000 (U.S.) payment to Mirasol Resources Ltd. Newcrest has presented a budget of $3.3-million (U.S.) for this season's exploration program, including a maiden drill program, subject to obtaining applicable permits and permissions.

Mirasol's president and chief executive officer, Stephen Nano, stated: "We are pleased that Newcrest has exercised the farm-in option for Altazor, representing a significant step forward for the project. The next stage of the earn-in represents a substantial financial investment from one of the world's largest gold miners to advance exploration at Altazor. We look forward to the results for the second season's work program, including the planned maiden drill test of some of the key targets defined to date at the project."

Highlights of recent activity at Altazor

• Option to farm-in agreement: The initial 12-month option stage of the Altazor agreement has been completed with Newcrest incurring exploration expenditures in excess of $1.5-million (U.S.). Newcrest has made a $500,000 (U.S.) option payment to Mirasol, exercising the farm-in stage of the agreement, where it now has four years to spend an additional $8.5-million (U.S.) (total $10-million (U.S.)) to earn 51 per cent of the project (see news release Nov. 21, 2017). Newcrest will be operator, managing all exploration activities at the project, allowing Mirasol's exploration teams to focus on new opportunities.
• 2018/2019 planned program: Newcrest has presented a budget for this year's Southern Hemisphere summer exploration program at Altazor totalling approximately $3.3-million (U.S.), subject to obtaining permits and permissions. The budget includes allocations for a planned maiden drill program, totalling up to 4,000 metres to test a series of compelling drill targets associated with multiple large, very resistive (7,500 to over 30,000 ohm-metres) controlled-source audio magnetotelluric (CSAMT) geophysics anomalies at the Alunita, Sulfuros and Pirofilita prospects identified by last year's exploration. The budget also includes allocations to continue the surface exploration of the large Altazor alteration system, including infill and survey extensions of the CSAMT geophysics, geological mapping, and soil and rock-chip sampling to test new areas of the Altazor alteration system. This season's surface exploration is anticipated to start late in the fourth quarter of 2018.
• Environmental studies, drill permit and community relations: Newcrest has commenced drill and road access permitting to the prospects, environmental studies and the community consultation process for the drill program. Drilling is anticipated to commence in the second quarter of 2019, once permitting has been completed.
• Claims extension: Exploration results from 2017/2018 identified potential covered extensions of the Altazor alteration system. Newcrest and Mirasol have recently staked approximately 10,000 hectares of new claims, expanding the project by approximately 30 per cent to a total of 33,230 hectares.

Summary of the Altazor project and recent results from the 2017/2018 exploration

Newcrest and Mirasol are targeting large-scale bulk minable high-sulphidation epithermal (HSE) gold-plus-silver deposits at Altazor, of the style recently discovered elsewhere in the Mio-Pliocene mineral belt of Chile by Gold Fields at Salares Norte (currently under feasibility study) and by Barrick Gold at the Alturas project.

Altazor has favourable logistics, situated just 20 kilometres south of 345-kilovolt power lines that follow International Highway Route 23 as well as a paved road connecting northern Chile and Argentina, a potentially significant logistical advantage if a discovery were to be made at the project. In common with other Mio-Pliocene mines and projects in Chile and Argentina, Altazor is located at high altitudes of between 4,000 metres and 5,200 metres; however, Altazor has drive-up access through an open valley and a network of easily passable gravel tracks to the east side of the project.

The Altazor project is centred on a district-scale zoned argillic to advanced argillic alteration system hosted by a dacitic-to-andesitic volcanic complex that is crosscut by multiphase, strongly altered phreatic and hydrothermal breccia systems. A large proportion of the Altazor project is capped by laterally extensive, but relatively thin, unaltered postmineral volcanics that conceal the full dimensions of the alteration and breccia system.

All results from last season's exploration program have been received. This includes long-lead-time Corescan alteration analysis of soils and radiometric age dates as well as results from a 1,035-line-kilometre ground magnetic survey, geological mapping and rock-chip sampling over an area of 128 square kilometres, a 2,030-sample, low-detection-limit soil grid covering 85.6 square kilometres, and a 66.9-line-kilometre CSAMT resistivity geophysical survey.

Integrated analysis of the combined data sets shows Altazor to be a district-scale, zoned alteration system, preserved at a level that could conceal HSE gold deposits beneath a barren steam-heated cap rock and postmineral cover, as has been the case at recent multimillion-ounce discoveries elsewhere in the Mio-Pliocene mineral belt in Chile.

Newcrest and Mirasol have received results from three K-Ar (potassium-argon) alunite alteration age dates from Altazor that range between 7.3 million years to 7.8 million years. An additional K-Ar age determination on biotite for the postmineral volcanics has returned a younger age of 5.8 million years. The alteration ages for Altazor fall within the key mineralization window of 6.2 million years to 13.1 million years that brackets the formation of the giant Mio-Pliocene-age HSE gold deposits in the El Indio belt (EIB) of Chile and Argentina. Bracketing of the Altazor alteration age within the EIB mineralization ages confirms the Altazor system formed during this key period for gold deposit formation and, as such, may have the potential of being a productive precious metal system.

Alteration and breccias outcrop intermittently along a 15-kilometre-long northeast-oriented range front that is interpreted as a series of large fault scarps. The 207-square-kilometre ground magnetic survey completed over the project shows a series of large magnetic depletion zones correlating with the mapped areas of alteration, that are separated by the magnetically distinct postalteration volcanics. It is interpreted that the postalteration volcanics partially mask the magnetic depletion signature of the underlying alteration, suggesting the Altazor system may cover a much larger area and be open to the south into the new claims recently staked by the Newcrest and Mirasol.

Gold-plus-silver mineralization in HSE deposits is invariably associated with bodies of intense silicification and brecciation. CSAMT geophysics has been successfully used in recent significant HSE gold discoveries as an exploration methodology to target concealed high-intensity resistivity anomalies that, subsequent drill testing, confirmed to be vuggy silica and silicified breccia bodies hosting gold mineralization at these projects. At Altazor, in the central part of the alteration system, 66.9 line kilometres of CSAMT were surveyed on 400-metre and 800-metre line spacing and delineated a series of concealed and predominantly open-ended, intense resistivity highs (7,500 to over 30,000 ohm-metres) anomalies at the Alunita, Sulfuros and Pirofilita prospects.

Geochemistry from 2,030 soil samples collected on an 85.6-square-kilometre soil grid using low-, part-per-billion-detection-limit, four-acid-digest, multielement analysis shows subtle element patterns in geochemically barren steam-heated and advanced argillic altered cap rock. Integrated analysis of these data has mapped low-, part-per-billion-level gold (peak assay of 131 parts per billion) with strongly anomalous silver plus antimony plus tellurium plus arsenic that vector toward the southwest into an area of concealed, high-intensity CSAMT resistivity anomalies at the Alunita and Sulfuros prospects. The Pirofilita prospect is characterized by soils that are strongly anomalous in silver (local peak values of up to 22.3 parts per million and 54 parts per million) and antimony, with low-level gold, spatially coincident with outcropping intensely silicified breccias and concealed, highly resistive CSAMT anomalies.

Systematic analysis of all soil samples with Corescan provided a powerful additional data set that was used to map district-scale zonation in alteration mineral assemblages and was combined with the soil geochemical analysis to map spatial variation in indicator element ratios in alunite chemistry (alunite geochemical vectors).

Alteration mineral assemblages and alunite geochemistry that emerged from this analysis are important new methodologies for exploring in large high-level alteration systems to target covered mineralization bodies. At Altazor, these results vector to the southwest, corroborating the soil geochemistry vectors and further highlighting the concealed CSAMT resistivity anomalies as priority drill targets.

The 2017/2018 Altazor exploration results highlight the large areal extent of the alteration system at the project that will require several seasons to complete a first-pass evaluation. The integrated leading-edge technologies applied during the first season's exploration have identified multiple compelling large-scale drill targets in three principal prospects that have alteration, geochemical and geophysical characteristics in common with the predrill target signatures of Salares Norte and other recent HSE gold discoveries.

Analysis of the Altazor data sets outlines alteration mineral composition variation and low-detection-limit soil geochemistry anomalies, highlighting predictive patterns that vector toward a series of covered and predominantly open-ended, very resistive (7,500 to over 30,000 ohm-metres) CSAMT geophysical anomalies at the Alunita, Sulfuros and Pirofilita prospects. These anomalies define large-scale targets that have the form, dimensions and intensity of resistivity response that could indicate a series of silicified breccia and or vuggy silica bodies. The association of Altazor mineral chemistry and soil geochemistry vectors and the CSAMT resistivity anomalies define a series of high-priority conceptual targets for large-scale HSE gold mineralization that will be the focus of the planned 2018/2019 maiden drill campaign.

Mirasol will update its shareholders of progress as exploration advances at the Altazor project.

Stephen C. Nano, president and chief executive officer of Mirasol, has approved the technical content of this news release. Mr. Nano is a chartered professional geologist and a fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (CP and FAusIMM) and is a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101.

Quality assurance/quality control of the Altazor exploration program

All exploration on the project was supervised by Mr. Nano, who is the qualified person under NI 43-101.

Mirasol applies industry-standard exploration sampling methodologies and techniques. All geochemical soil, stream, rock and drill samples are collected under the supervision of the company's geologists in accordance with industry practice. Geochemical assays are obtained and reported under a quality assurance and quality control program. Samples are dispatched to an ISO 9001:2008-accredited laboratory in Chile for analysis. Assay results from surface rock, channel, trench and drill core samples may be higher, lower or similar to results obtained from surface samples due to surficial oxidation and enrichment processes or due to natural geological grade variations in the primary mineralization.

We seek Safe Harbor.