Desert Gold Ventures Inc. Makes New Discovery North of Gourbassi West SMSZ Project, Mali

Desert Gold carried out a 257 hole, 18,161 metre drill program from January to July 2021. This news release includes results from 25 AC, RC and core holes completed over the Gourbassi West Zone and a new, on-strike target zone, located 500 metres to 1,500 metres north of the last hole at the Gourbassi West Zone.

A summary of the drill highlights are as follows (see Figures 1 and 2 for more detail and Table 1 at end):

Gourbassi West North Extension (New Discovery)

• Drilling intersected 3 closely spaced gold zones totalling an estimated 94 metres true thickness (across a 125 metre wide area) (see Figure 2)
• Lens 1: 0.64 g/t gold over 23 metres - 16 metres estimated true width
• Lens 2: 1.06 g/t gold over 29 metres (incl 1.62 g/t gold over 13 metres)* and 0.67 g/t gold over 28 metres (incl 1.26 g/t gold over 7 metres)* - 33 metres estimated true width
• Lens 3: 1.13 g/t gold over 42 metres (incl 1.65 g/t gold over 19 metres)* and 1.12 g/t over 33 metres (incl 1.62 g/t gold over 16 metres)* - 45 metres estimated true width
• 500 metres south step-out from above holes: 0.64 g/t gold over 24 metres*

Gourbassi West (Zone Expansion)

• 1.23 g/t gold over 10 metres* in hole FR-21-RC-20
• 0.30 g/t gold over 31 metres* in hole FR-21-RC-2 (incl 1.13 g/t gold over 7 metres)
• 1.62 g/t gold over 8 metres* in hole FR-21-RC-22
• 6.42 g/t gold over 2.2 metres* in hole FR-21-DD-005
• 1.48 g/t gold over 15.55 metres* in hole FR-21-DD-006

* Estimated true widths for the holes is from 75 to 85% of the intercept width.

Desert Gold's President & CEO, Jared Scharf, commented, "Our 2021 drilling and property acquisition successes clearly support the exceptional exploration potential of our SMSZ Project. Through the drill bit we have both added to existing gold zones and discovered new ones like our recent Gourbassi West North discovery. Additionally, the acquisition of the Kolomba concession has added, what we believe, is likely the largest gold zone on the property to date. The primary objective of our 2022 drill campaign will be to aggressively expand these zones with more drilling. We look forward to getting back out into the field as soon as we can."

Figure 1. Summary Surface Plan Gourbassi Target Area

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Figure 2. Gourbassi West North Drill Section

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Technical Details

The Gourbassi West target area is located in the southwest portion of Desert Gold's SMSZ project (see figures 3 and 4 for regional and property scale locations). Desert Gold's initial program over Gourbassi West was designed to complete a model validation and resource expansion drill program that commenced in 2020, which included some follow-up drilling based on results. As part of this program, the Company completed three, short, 500-meter-spaced auger lines all of which, returned very anomalous gold-in-auger values. Follow-up drilling over two of the three auger lines, resulted in the discovery of the Gourbassi West North gold mineralization, which appears to be the widest gold system intersected on the SMSZ property to date. The strongest gold-in-auger values, on a line 500 metres further north, have not been tested yet as the onset of the rainy season necessitated an abrupt end to the 2021 drill campaign. This line of auger will be drill tested at the start of the 2022 drill campaign.

Gourbassi West North Zone

The Gourbassi West North Zone area is located approximately from 800 to 1,400 metres north of the modelled Gourbassi West Zone along a northly trending structural and soil anomaly target zone that has been traced for approximately 4,000 metres. This gold mineralization was discovered by following up gold-in-auger values that range up to 1,937 ppb gold on the furthest north, currently untested auger line. As well, first pass soil sample data (Desert Gold news release - June 1, 2021) suggest potential to further extend the high priority exploration target area for another 6,500 metres to the north. Auger drilling will be used to validate the gold-in-soil trend prior to drilling.

Ten, 50 metre long, air core holes, in two fences, 600 metres apart, were drilled to test the gold-in auger anomalies. Of these, seven of the holes intersected potentially economic gold grades. Note that further studies will be required to determine if any of the gold mineralization could be deemed economic.

The northernmost fence comprised seven holes which are interpreted to have intersected three gold-bearing lenses across a 125-metre-wide area (see Figure 2) with a best intercept of 1.13 g/t gold over 42 metres, including 1.62 g/t gold over 13 metres. The interpreted true width of these three lenses totals approximately 94 metres with the widest interpreted to be 45 metres wide. Modelling of the gold-bearing lenses also incorporates lower grade material grading from 0.1 to 0.4 g/t gold (gold alteration). The bulk of the mineralization is hosted by intermediate composition volcanic rocks with part of the mineralization hosted by sandstone and a narrow felsic intrusion. In the Gourbassi West Zone area, the sandstone is interpreted to be 'Tarkwa-like' sediments. Tarkwa rocks are an important host to several large gold mines in Ghana.

The southernmost AC fence comprised 3, 50 metre holes, one of which intersected 0.64 g/t gold over 24 metres (FR-21-AC-019). Additional, untested auger (31 ppb) and soil (111 ppb) lie to the west of the drilled area. This mineralized area, may also be open to the east as at least one additional hole is required to close off the auger anomaly. The mineralization in hole 019 is hosted by a similar-looking quartzite unit as intersected in the northernmost fence, suggesting that there could be continuity between these two widely spaced drill fences and that the host intermediate volcanic unit lies further west and has not been tested yet.

Gourbassi West

Ten RC, 2 core hole and 3 AC holes were drilled at Gourbassi West during the recent drill program (see Figure 1 for locations). All but one of the holes intersected variable amounts of gold mineralization with the best intercept returned from hole FR-21-DD-006 with an intercept of 1.48 g/t gold over 15.6 metres.

Three RC holes (20, 22a and 39), drilled to test the westernmost Gourbassi West Zone lens, succeeded in both extending the mineralization another 50 metres to depth (FR-21-RC-020 and 022A), with better grades and extending the mineralized trend another 100 metres to the south, where it remains open (FR-21-RC-039).

Drill intercepts in RC holes 37 and 38, returned better grades than previous holes on these sections with RC hole 38 returning a 10-metre wide, Tarkwa-type-rock-hosted, interval that returned 0.8 g/t gold over 10 metres. An AC hole, FR-21-AC-21 drilled above RC hole 38, returned 0.30 g/t gold over 42 metres, the entire length of the hole.

Two core holes, 005 and 006, were drilled to test the Gourbassi West Zone to depth with intercepts from both holes, likely to pull the modelled gold zones at least another 50 metres down dip. Hole FR-21-DD-005, a 70 metre down dip step-out from 0.88 g/t gold over 6.5 metres, returned 0.47 g/t gold over 6.6 metres and 6.42 g/t gold over 2.2 metres 70 metres down-dip of 0.65 g/t gold over 10 metres. Hole FR-21-DD-006 returned 0.96 g/t gold over 6.4 metres and 1.48 g/t gold over 15.6 metres, 50 metres down-dop of 1.13 g/t gold over 4 metres and 0.74 g/t gold over 7 metres, respectively.

Next Steps

All drill results have been returned from the lab, including requested re-assays. Results for the remainder of the 2021 drill program will be presented in subsequent news releases over the next few weeks as interpretations of the data progress.

Planning for a 43-101 compliant technical report continues. Updated modelling of mineralized zones is in progress. Assuming no technical issues, this report is scheduled to be completed before the resumption of drilling in the latter part of the year.

About the SMSZ Project

The ~440 km² SMSZ Project is both named after, and, overlies a 43 km section of the Senegal Mali Shear Zone (see Figure 1), which is related to 5 large gold mines located both to the north and south, along strike, including B2 Gold's Fekola Mine, Barrick's Gounkoto and Loulo Mines and AngloGold Ashanti/Iamgold's (now Allied Gold's) Sadiola and Yatela Mines¹. To the Company's knowledge, the SMSZ Project is the largest, contiguous, non-producer land package over this very prospective structural feature. Exploration targets within 5 km of the Senegal Mali Shear Zone, are considered by management, to be high priority exploration targets.

QAQC

All auger and drill samples are delivered to SGS in Bamako, Mali where they are prepped. The prepped samples, are both shipped by truck to SGS's facility in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, or remain at SGS's laboratory in Bamako, for Au determination by fire assay. Standards, assay blanks and sample duplicates, are inserted into the assay stream every 22 to 30 samples, respectively equaling one control sample for every approximately every 8 assay samples. All assay batches are reviewed for quality with re-assays requested 20 samples on either side of standards that assay more than 2 to 3 SD from an excepted value and for blanks that contain more than 10 ppb gold.

There is no QAQC record for the historic fire assays for the Barani East, Barani, Keniegoulou, Keniegoulou South and KE zones and as such, until validated, may not be relied on with 100% certainty. However, from follow-up exploration carried out to date, the correlation between historic gold values and subsequent validation work, have generally been withing acceptable parameters.

This press release contains certain scientific and technical information. The Company is solely responsible for the contents and accuracy of any scientific and technical information related to it. Don Dudek, P.Geo. a director of Desert Gold and a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this press release.

About Desert Gold

Desert Gold Ventures Inc. is a gold exploration and development company which holds 2 gold exploration permits in Western Mali (SMSZ Project and Djimbala) and its Rutare gold project in central Rwanda. For further information please visit www.SEDAR.com under the company's profile. Website: www.desertgold.ca.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

"Sonny Janda"

____________________
Sonny Janda, Chairman

Contact:
Jared Scharf, President & CEO
Email: jared.scharf@desertgold.ca
Tel. No.: +1 (858) 247-8195

For further information please visit our website www.desertgold.ca or information available on www.SEDAR.com under the company's profile.

Certain statements contained in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" (collectively "forward-looking information") as those terms are used in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and similar Canadian laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated", "anticipates" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Company's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, this release contains forward-looking information relating to the business of the Company, the Property, financing and certain corporate changes. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and the Company is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the securities described herein in the united states. The securities described herein have not been and will not be registered under the united states securities act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the united states or to the account or benefit of a U.S. person absent an exemption from the registration requirements of such act.

Figure 3. SMSZ Project Location, Regional Geology and Major Deposits in Western Mali and Eastern Senegal

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Figure 4. Property Scale Compilation Map**

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**All gold grades over width, with the exception of the Soa, Berola and Gourbassi prospects, represent drill holes with the true widths, for most holes, ranging from 65 to 95%. Estimated true widths for the Soa and Berola prospects are unknown. Estimated true widths at the Gourbassi Zones are estimated to range from 60% to 90%.

Table 1. Summary of Significant Drill Intercepts

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¹ Mineralization hosted on adjacent and/or nearby properties is not necessarily representative of mineralization hosted on the Company's SMSZ Property.