Aton Reports the First Results From Its Diamond Drilling Programme at the Abu Marawat Deposit, Including 8.98 g/t Au, 185 g/t Ag, 0.43% Cu and 6.12% Zn Over an Interval of 3.90 Metres

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 7, 2024 / Aton Resources Inc. (TSXV:AAN) ("Aton" or the "Company") updates investors on the results of the ongoing drilling 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 35 diamond drill holes have been drilled at Abu Marawat, for a total of 3,381m. 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 the first 14 holes of the programme (AMD-101 to AMD-114) are now available, with significant high grade polymetallic mineralised intersections including:

• 8.98 g/t Au, 185 g/t Ag, 11.16 g/t AuEq, 0.43% Cu, 0.23% Pb and 6.12% Zn over a 3.90m interval , from 82.10m downhole depth, from hole AMD-110;

• 9.57 g/t Au, 92.9 g/t Ag, 10.66 g/t AuEq and 0.52% Cu over a 3.90m interval , from 24.20m downhole depth (hole AMD-107);

• 6.24 g/t Au, 203 g/t Ag, 8.63 g/t AuEq, 0.30% Cu, 0.10% Pb and 4.81% Zn over a 2.60m interval , from 97.20m downhole depth (hole AMD-111);

• 3.15 g/t Au, 172 g/t Ag, 5.17 g/t AuEq, 0.50% Cu, 0.23% Pb and 4.69% Zn over a 3.15m interval , from 82.50m downhole depth (hole AMD-112).

"I am pleased to announce these very encouraging first results from our new diamond drilling programme, the first new drilling that Aton has carried out at Abu Marawat since 2011" said Tonno Vahk, CEO. "This new drilling programme has been designed to test areas of previously undrilled mineralisation at Abu Marawat that lie outside or on the southern margins of the 2012 maiden resource. The primary objective of the new drilling programme is to upgrade the mineral resources at the Abu Marawat deposit to indicated category. This is an integral part of the longer term plan to bring the retained exploration areas into the exploitation lease, and ultimately leading to the development of multiple gold mining operations on the Concession including the Hamama West, Rodruin and Semna deposits, as well as Abu Marawat. In Egypt the Company continues to make steady progress with our partners the Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority towards the initial development of the Hamama West mine."

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 50m 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-iron-oxide±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. 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 and sphalerite.

To the north Abu Marawat 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 the CVZ and the Fin Vein, such as the J Vein and the JVZ structure that are currently largely undrilled, with the mineralised system at Abu Marawat remaining open both laterally and at depth.

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 35 diamond drill holes (holes AMD-101 to AMD-135) have been completed, for a total of 3,381m. All holes have been drilled horizontally or at shallow angles using Energold's Global Drilling ID500-G track-mounted rig (see news release dated November 23, 2021) previously used to drill at the Rodruin deposit. The programme has been designed to test previously undrilled near-surface mineralisation at the southern extent of the Abu Marawat deposit in an area of steep and mountainous terrain that is hard to access for conventional drilling rigs (Figure 3).

Table 1: Abu Marawat diamond drill hole collar details

The assay results are now available for the first 14 holes of the programme, AMD-101 to AMD-114, which were designed to test the mapped J and Fin Veins, and the JVZ structure (Figure 4). The collar details of these holes are provided in Table 1. In this area the JVZ structure obliquely crosses the summit ridge line of the Abu Marawat hill (seen on the right of Figure 3), with the J Vein outcropping west of the ridge line, and the Fin Vein outcropping to the east. Due to the steep topography there has been no previous drilling carried out in this area to test the outcropping near surface mineralisation.

The first 9 holes of the new diamond drilling programme at Abu Marawat, AMD-101 to AMD-109, were designed to test the J Vein and JVZ structures which have been mapped at surface, from the west side of the main Abu Marawat hill (Figure 4). The J Vein and JVZ structure have returned good gold grades from surface grab and channel sampling.

Holes AMD-110 to AMD-114 were drilled from the east side on westerly azimuths and were primarily designed to test the Fin Vein (Figure 4). Hole AMD-108 was also extended far enough from the western side to intersect the Fin Vein.

All intersection details from the programme are provided in Appendix A, with selected intersections shown in Table 2 below.