ATAC reveals a Tiger but the market waits for Nadaleen

ATAC Resources (ATC-V) has submitted a maiden resource estimate, and while it doesn’t come from the zone that investors are most interested in, it still shows a promising deposit.

The resource estimate comes out of the Tiger deposit, which sits in the Rau trend. Rau is 100-km west from the Nadaleen trend where the company made a Carlin-type mineralization discovery back in 2010 to much fanfare.

And while ATAC says a resource on Nadaleen will be out in the coming weeks, the average grades found at Tiger are still noteworthy.

Using a cut-off grade of 0.30 grams gold the estimate outlined indicated resources of 7.15 million tonnes grading 2.21 grams gold for 508,000 oz. of gold. In the inferred category it outlined 8.2 million tonnes grading 1.09 grams gold for 290,200 oz.

Those resources include both oxide and sulphide resources.

Things get considerably more interesting, however, when the scope is narrowed to just the near surface high-grade oxide mineralization. When that is done a higher cutoff of 1.6 grams yields indicated resources of 2.5 million tonnes grading 4.25 grams gold for 337,500 oz. and inferred resources come in at 180,000 tonnes grading 3 grams gold for 17,400 oz.

“While we are now focusing most of our exploration on the Carlin-type mineralization in the Nadaleen Trend, we believe the Tiger Deposit carbonate-replacement resource has significant value and we are considering alternative strategies to realize this value,” Graham Downs, ATAC’s chief executive said in a statement.

As for the sulphide zone a cutoff grade of 1.0 grams gold generates indicated resources of 1.4 million tonnes grading 2.07 grams gold for 90,500 oz. and inferred resources of 2.9 million tonnes grading 1.8 grams gold for 166,100 oz.

The Rau trend that hosts Tiger sits at the western end of its wholly-owned and 185-km long Rackla Gold Project.

The deposit had been the focus of ATAC’s exploration dollars between 2006 and 2010, at which point the Nadaleen discovery was made and attracted most of the company’s capital.

Tiger is a thick northwesterly trending body of carbonate-replacement style gold mineralization hosted by a moderately northeast dipping karsted limestone horizon.

It is currently 700 metres long, 100 to 200 metres wide, up to 96 m thick and open to expansion down-dip and along strike to the east. The oxidized zone extends to a depth of 250 metres.

Early metallurgical tests on the oxide material indicated an average 96.87% gold recovery using ore grade cyanide leach with atomic absorption spectroscopy finish over a 24 hour period.

In Toronto on Oct. 20 the company’s shares were off 8% or 31¢ to $3.50 on roughly 300,000 shares traded.