Hawthorne Gold Corp. ("Hawthorne" or the "Company") (TSX-V: HGC, US: HWTHF) is pleased to announce assay results from step-out diamond drill holes TA09-41 and TA09-42 on the Taurus West Shear Zone where gold mineralization was intersected over broad widths. Drilling reported here was completed during the latter phase of the company's 2009 exploration program, and is from the western portion of the Taurus deposit.

The 2009 drilling and test mining programs at the Taurus deposit were designed to assess the potential for higher grade, continuous gold mineralization in the large low grade Taurus deposit that is host to a National Instrument 43-101 compliant inferred resource of approximately 1.06 million ounces of gold in 33.06 million tonnes grading 1.00 g/t Aug (see report by Wardrop Engineering Inc. dated March 1, 2009 - available under Hawthorne's profile at www.sedar.com).

Earlier results, which were reported in previous news releases, combined with those from surface trenching, have defined zones with over 3 g/t Au, and locally exceeding 15 g/t Au. The Company plans to follow-up on these results during 2010 to test for continuous higher grade zones.

In addition to the central portions of the Taurus deposit, a previously poorly tested area of disseminated shear zone hosted gold mineralization was identified by Cyprus Canada Incorporated ("Cyprus") in 1995. This area, termed the Taurus West Shear Zone, comprises a northerly trending and shallow east dipping auriferous pyritic shear zone that is several tens of metres thick, and that is localized around a central graphitic fault zone in mafic volcanic rocks. The structure is interpreted to represent a thrust that may be both a structural and fluid feeder to the vein systems in the Taurus deposit which occur in its hangingwall. Previous drilling intersected this structure in several historical drill holes within 150 metres of surface. Based on the open nature of historically intercepted gold mineralization, Hawthorne drilled two new holes (TA09-41 and TA09-42) within approximately 70 metres to the north and south of mineralized intercepts of historical drill hole T95-13 to test for the continuity of mineralization.

Significant intercepts are listed in Table 1, below, and include 87.59 m grading 1.43 g/t Au in drill hole TA09-41 starting at a down hole depth of 238.55 m, and 46.77 m grading 0.91 g/t Au in drill hole TA09-42 starting at a depth of 210.43 m. For comparative purposes, composited results from the nearby historical drill holes T95-13 and 07TC-07 also are listed in Table 1. Note that internal to these intercepts, multiple intersections of over 10 g/t Au also are present, which suggests potential for defining higher grade ore shoots within this zone.

Including previous drilling, the Taurus West Shear Zone has now been tested by widely-spaced drill holes over a north-south strike length of approximately 300 metres and down-dip along the shear zone plane for approximately 550 metres. The new drilling suggests that the mineralized shear zone widens at depth and is open. While true widths of gold mineralization have not yet been defined, the drill holes intersect the shallow-dipping shear zone at a relatively high angle. A representative diagram illustrating the context of these results and previous drilling is available on Hawthorne's website at www.hawthornegold.com.

The Taurus West mineralization represents a significant style of gold mineralization which may have similarities to shear zone hosted pyritic gold deposits such as Holt McDermott in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt, the Bonanza Ledge in the Cariboo district of British Columbia, and Macraes in New Zealand. A similar style of mineralization was intersected and tested by underground development in the lower portion of the past producing Taurus mine, two kilometres east of the Taurus West drilling (BC Geological Survey Branch in Paper 1997-1 by Andre Panteleyev). Hawthorne also recently completed drilling in the Wing's Canyon area, approximately two kilometres to the southeast of Taurus, where broad zones of pyritic mineralization surrounding a shallow dipping graphitic fault zone were also intersected; analytical results of this drilling are pending.

The new Taurus West drilling intercepts, recognition of similar mineralization at the Taurus mine, and the recent drill holes at Wing's Canyon suggest that the Taurus area has the potential to host broad areas of auriferous pyritic mineralization in associated shear zones. During 2010, the Company intends to continue to evaluate the potential of these significant results, as well as to test the potential of other areas for this style of mineralization.

The Taurus gold deposit, an advanced stage exploration and development project, is located in the Liard Mining Division of northern British Columbia, approximately eight kilometres from the Company's Cassiar Gold Mine, on Highway