Partners drill San Antonio

Operator Atna Resources (ATN-T) and partner Energold Mining (EGD-V) have launched a 7-hole, 2,000-metre drill program on the San Antonio-1 concession in the Dominican Republic.

The program will test the results of a geochemical and geophysical survey that outlined a 600-by-6,000-metre gold-copper-lead-silver-barium soil anomaly.

The 3,250-ha concession is 25 km south of Pueblo Viejo and 20 km from Falconbridge’s Cerro Maimon volcanogenic massive sulphide deposit. The latter is estimated to contain 3.5 million tonnes grading 3.77% copper and 2.04% zinc plus 46.36 grams silver and 0.62 gram gold per tonne.

San Antonio is a “blind” target with no surface expression and is underlain by Maimon Formation quartz-sericite schists, chlorite schists and tuffaceous sediments.

Surface sampling of float boulders returned gold values in the range of 1 to 5 grams gold per tonne, with anomalous base metal values.

Shallow drilling by Battle Mountain Gold (BMC-T) and Canyon Resources (CAU-X) in 1992 intersected massive sulphide mineralization.

Drill hole SJ-2 cut 15.6 metres averaging 1.2% copper, 0.5% zinc, 9 grams silver and 0.7 gram gold, whereas a 0.3-metre portion of the hangingwall interval averaged 0.9% copper, 15.2% zinc, 29.1 grams silver and 5.8 grams gold.

Hole SJ-4, collared 200 metres southeast of hole SJ-2, intersected 1.4 metres averaging 0.84% copper, 4.8% zinc, 13 grams silver and 0.4 gram gold.

Included in this interval was 0.3 metre of 2.6% copper, 16.9% zinc, 25.7 grams silver and 1.1 grams gold. The mineralization was encountered along the same contact as in hole SJ-2.

Atna can earn a 60% interest in the San Antonio-1 concession from Energold Mining by spending US$3 million over four years and issuing US$300,000 in Atna shares.