Atna completes Wolf earn-in

Junior Atna Resources (ATN-T) has completed its acquisition of a 65% interest in the Wolf property, a polymetallic volcanogenic massive sulphide target in the southern Yukon. The vendor and joint-venture partner is YGC Resources (YGC-V).

The property is 45 km west of Cominco‘s (CLT-T) Kudz Ze Kayah deposit and 65 km from the Wolverine joint venture of Atna and Expatriate Resources (EXR-V). However, Atna says the sulphides at Wolf are hosted in a different geological belt, and, consequently, no metallurgical difficulties are anticipated.

The deposit is hosted in a felsic package of lapilli and ash tuffs of Mississippian age and sandwiched between Devonian and Mississippian carbonates. The main sulphide minerals are pyrite, sphalerite and galena. Unlike the Wolverine deposit, no selenium is present.

Based on 31 drill intersections, Atna has outlined an inferred resource of 4.1 million tonnes grading 6.2% zinc and 1.8% lead, plus 84 grams silver per tonne. The deposit remains open to the southeast and downdip.

In 1998, Atna discovered the East slope zone about 1.2 km southeast of the Wolf deposit. Drilling intersected banded semi-massive to massive sulphide mineralization, which occurs 70 metres stratigraphically below the Wolf deposit horizon. Assay results from four East Slope drill holes are as follows (all intervals are reported as true thickness):

• Hole 42 cut 7.5 metres grading 1.4% zinc, 0.32% lead and 12.2 grams silver starting at a down-hole depth of 80.7 metres.
• Hole 43 intersected 5.2 metres averaging 2.58% zinc, 0.31% lead and 18.6 grams silver starting at a depth of 65.5 metres. Another interval hit 2.2 metres averaging 2.75% zinc, 0.55% lead and 23 grams silver, starting at a down-hole depth of 97 metres.
• Hole 44 returned 14.6 metres of 1.16% zinc, 0.35% lead and 10.5 grams silver starting at a depth of 92 metres down-hole. Farther down-hole, at a depth of 136.5 metres, a 0.7-metre intercept averaged 5.05% zinc, 1.92% lead and 212.2 grams silver.
• Hole 45 intersected 4.6 metres of 5.73% zinc, 2.1% lead and 43.6 grams silver starting 143.4 metres down-hole.

  Exploration in 1999 will attempt to expand the Wolf deposit and follow-up on the East Slope discovery, as well as test for other massive sulphide mineralization.

  Atna’s working capital is pegged at $15 million.