Rye Patch Gold Corp. on Oct. 16 announced a three-year program to expand the oxide resource and delineate sulfide potential at its Florida Canyon and Lincoln Hill gold projects in Nevada.

The program is designed to increase measured and indicated oxide resources at the projects as well as quantify and deliver a sulfide resource beneath the Florida Canyon oxide deposit.

A phase-one, 10,000-meter expansion drill program is planned at Florida Canyon. The program, which commenced earlier in October, is expected to cost US$1 million.

"Over the history of the Florida Canyon mine, a total of 3.5-million ounces of gold from oxide material has been placed on the historic leach pad and the company is currently mining a 1.12-million ounces of measured and indicated oxide gold resource. Based on our exploration model, management believes the sulfide resource beneath Florida Canyon has a similar number of ounces of gold but at a much higher grade," President and CEO William Howald said.