Atna to wage summer drill campaign

Atna Resources (ATN-T) is preparing to launch drill programs at three of its properties, the total budget for which is about $2 million.

A minimum 5-hole program is planned for the San Antonio volcanogenic massive sulphide property in the Dominican Republic. Atna is earning a 60% interest in the property from Energold Mining (EGD-V).

Previous drilling resulted in high-grade intersections in the Parcela zone, including 11.15 ft. averaging 5.9% copper, 3.5% zinc and 0.1% lead, as well as 2.5 oz. silver and 0.066 oz. gold per ton.

Another high-grade intersection was recovered at the Copper zone, a mile south of Parcela. Drilling there returned 6.23 ft. averaging 1.2% copper, 15.8% zinc, 0.3% lead, 0.7 oz. silver and 0.038 oz. gold.

That program at San Antonio will also test gold and base metal soil anomalies identified through induced-polarization, chargeability and resistivity surveys.

In addition, Atna will begin a 10,000-ft. program on the Dry Creek property in Alaska. The junior can earn a 51% interest in both this and the Anderson Mountain property by spending $5 million on exploration over the next five years. The vendor is Grayd Resources (GYD-V).

Combined, the two properties comprise 17,700 acres; they are situated 60 miles south of Fairbanks.

This year’s program, budgeted at about $1 million, is designed to test down-dip extensions of the high-grade DC North massive sulphide zone. Previous intersections from Dry Creek include 160 ft. averaging 0.1% copper, 2% lead, 4.2% zinc, 0.01 oz. gold and 2.1 oz. silver, and 11 ft. averaging 0.88% copper, 11.7% lead, 25.9% zinc, 0.1 oz. gold and 10.1 oz. silver.

Meanwhile, at the Caribou Dome property in south-central Alaska, Atna is planning to carry out a program of mapping, geochemistry, geophysics and diamond drilling.

The property hosts stratiform copper mineralization and is said to bear similarities to the Kupferschiefer copper-shale deposits of Europe and the copper-belt deposits of Zambia. (These deposits are described as being syngenetic chemical sedimentary in origin within a reduction-oxidation basin.)

The property was previously owned by a private company, which conducted exploration in the late 1960s; little work has been carried out since. Based on calculations by previous operators, Caribou Dome contains a preliminary resource of 550,400 tons averaging 5.8% copper.

Past work included surface trenching and percussion and diamond drilling, as well as 2,900 ft. of underground development. In total, 224 surface and underground holes were sunk over 34,074 ft.

The deepest drill hole cut 50.6 ft. (a true thickness of 40 ft.) grading 7.01% copper at a depth of 800 ft. from the surface. Metallurgical tests in the 1970s indicated that recovery of high-grade concentrate would prove difficult. However, Atna says modern metallurgical processes could lead to a favourable recovery rate.

In the Yukon, at their Wolverine deposit, Atna and partner Expatriate Resources (EXR-V) have begun to investigate ways to process high-selenium material.