Aton Reports Further Results from the Abu Marawat Diamond Drilling Programme, Including 3.62 g/t Au and 47.2 g/t Ag Over an Interval of 27.60 Metres

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESS Newswire / March 11, 2025 / Aton Resources Inc. (AAN:TSX-V) ("Aton" or the "Company") updates investors on the results of its ongoing diamond drilling programme at the Abu Marawat deposit, located within the retained exploration areas of the Company's Abu Marawat Concession ("Abu Marawat" or the "Concession") in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.

Highlights:

• To date 66 diamond drill holes have been drilled at Abu Marawat, for a total of 5,468m. All holes have been drilled horizontally or at shallow angles to test previously undrilled near-surface mineralisation in an area of steep and mountainous terrain that is hard to access for conventional drilling rigs;

• Results for a further 31 holes, AMD-115 to AMD-145, are now available, with significant high grade polymetallic mineralised intersections including:

• 3.62 g/t Au, 47.2 g/t Ag, 4.15 g/t AuEq, 0.32% Cu and 0.63% Zn over a 27.60m interval on the CVZ, from 34.40m downhole depth (hole AMD-142);

• 4.53 g/t Au, 68.5 g/t Ag, 5.29 g/t AuEq, 0.42% Cu and 1.65% Zn over a 16.85m interval, on the CVZ, from 32.15m downhole depth (hole AMD-131);

• 6.64 g/t Au, 135 g/t Ag, 8.15 g/t AuEq, 0.45% Cu, 0.39% Pb and 4.85% Zn over a 3.75m interval on the Fin Vein, from 55.85m downhole depth (hole AMD-117);

• 3.70 g/t Au, 113 g/t Ag, 4.95 g/t AuEq, 0.30% Cu and 2.47% Zn over a 5.90m interval, on the Fin Vein, from 83.60m downhole depth (hole AMD-118).

"I am happy to be able to update investors on the ongoing diamond drilling at Abu Marawat, as well as the commencement of field programmes on the Hamama West PFS over the last few months" said Tonno Vahk, CEO. "The drilling has been proceeding steadily at Abu Marawat where we are looking to bring the resource up to indicated category, and we are very pleased as it continues to deliver more encouraging high grade gold-silver intersections from the Fin Vein, as well as significant near surface widths of polymetallic mineralisation from the CVZ, at very respectable gold equivalent grades of greater than 4-5 g/t. At the same time we are moving forwards with fieldwork on the Hamama West PFS, commenced in 2024. We have completed a short programme of infrastructure sterilisation and resource delineation RC drilling, as we switch the focus of the PFS to a modular CIL processing route, instead of the originally planned heap leaching. We are also particularly encouraged by the positive results from follow-up groundwater exploration drilling at Hamama. And with the commencement of another phase of RC drilling at Semna in February, the team continue to be very busy on the ground as Aton pushes ahead towards the development of the next gold mines in Egypt."

Abu Marawat gold-silver-copper-zinc deposit

The Abu Marawat gold-silver-copper-zinc deposit is located approximately 35km northeast of the Hamama West deposit and 10km north-northeast of the Semna gold mine project, and is accessed via a well maintained desert track from the Qena-Safaga highway, approximately 25km to the north (Figure 1). On March 1, 2012 Aton Resources, when formerly named Alexander Nubia International Inc, announced a maiden NI 43‐101 compliant Inferred Mineral Resource at Abu Marawat, prepared by Roscoe Postle Associates Inc., in compliance with the requirements set out in Canada's National Instrument 43‐101. The resource was subsequently restated in an updated Technical Report without amendment (see news release dated January 24, 2017), and which is available online at Aton's website at https://atonresources.com/investors/reports-and-presentations. This Inferred Mineral Resource was based on 98 diamond drill holes totalling 19,573 metres. 19 of these holes were drilled by a former property owner, Minex Minerals Egypt, a wholly owned subsidiary of Greenwich Resources Plc during the late 1980's, and the remainder were drilled by Aton in 2011. The Inferred Mineral Resource comprises 2.9 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.75 g/t Au, 29.3 g/t Ag, 0.77% Cu and 1.15% Zn, containing 162 thousand ounces of gold, 2.7 million ounces of silver, 49 million lbs of copper, and 73 million lbs of zinc, and was based on net smelter return ("NSR") cut‐off grades.

The polymetallic mineralisation at Abu Marawat is interpreted as being mesothermal in origin, and occurs in a series of discrete and roughly parallel N-S to NNW-SSE trending veins and structures, of which the Fin Vein and the Central Vein zone ("CVZ") are the most significant, hosted within a sequence of intensely hydrothermally altered, felsic metavolcanic rocks (Figure 2). The Fin Vein and the CVZ are about 50-100m apart and have been traced for at least 800m in surface outcrop and drill holes. Aton's previous drilling has demonstrated that these structures extend to at least 200m in depth.

The mineralisation at Abu Marawat comprises a series of steep to near vertical finely brecciated quartz-carbonate-sulphide "veins". At surface the Fin Vein and CVZ are expressed by quartz-rich gossans, and all the larger structures display development of quartz-sericite-hematite±carbonate wallrock alteration in outcrop. Several of the veins, notably the CVZ, were mined at surface in ancient times, apparently primarily for copper. The main ore minerals present are sphalerite, chalcopyrite, galena, electrum, gold, and a number of gold and silver tellurides such as petzite and hessite. The gangue minerals comprise quartz, limonite, ankerite, pyrite, magnetite and hematite. Close to the surface the carbonate minerals have been leached, and the sulphides are largely replaced by hemimorphite, willemite, chrysocolla, malachite, limonite and hematite. In the oxidised material, the gold occurs as minute free grains in limonite or malachite. In the fresh sulphide mineralisation gold is associated with tellurides, chalcopyrite and sphalerite.

To its north, the Abu Marawat deposit is truncated by a large WNW-ESE trending fault postulated to run beneath wadi sediments. To the east a prominent ridge composed of altered ultramafic rocks (listwaenites) is thought to represent a significant geological terrane boundary (Figure 2).

The bulk of the Inferred Mineral Resource at the Abu Marawat deposit encompasses parts of the CVZ and the Fin Vein, but there are also multiple, subparallel veins to the east and to the west of these structures, such as the J Vein, the JVZ structure, the V Ridge Vein and the Valley Vein zone that are largely undrilled to date. The mineralised system at Abu Marawat currently remains open both laterally and at depth.

Abu Marawat diamond drilling programme

The current diamond drill programme started at the beginning of June 2024, and represents the first significant new fieldwork that Aton has carried out at Abu Marawat since 2011. To date 66 diamond drill holes (holes AMD-101 to AMD-166) have been completed, for a total of 5,468m. All the holes have been drilled horizontally or at shallow angles to test previously undrilled near-surface mineralisation at the Abu Marawat deposit in an area of steep and mountainous terrain.

Assay results are now available for a further 31 holes, AMD-115 to AMD-145, and the collar details of these holes are provided in Table 1. The holes variously tested the Fin Vein, the JVZ structure, the CVZ and the Valley Vein zone ("VVZ") in the southern and central eastern areas of the Abu Marawat deposit (Figure 2).