U.S.REPORT Toffan, Netolitzky fund Atna deal

Armed with the proceeds of a recent private placement, Atna Resources (VSE) has been busy assembling a land package in the Foothills Belt of California, a region known to be prospective for polymetallic massive sulphide deposits. The private placement of 500,000 units at 40 cents was made by a group of investors headed by John Toffan, Ron Netolitzky and Lawrence Nagy. Peter DeLancey, a former senior geologist for Imperial Metals, recently became president of Atna.

The company has already acquired an option to purchase a 50% interest in the Schell Ranch project from Colony Pacific Explorations (TSE) by spending US$3 million over four years. Atna must also pay Colony US$185,000 and make property payments of US$300,000.

Atna is planning a detailed geophysical survey and deep drilling program for this year, with work focused on a 4-mile-long belt of altered volcanics. This belt is reported to host several massive sulphide lenses within a wide envelope of strong pyritization.

Although still at an early stage, the Schell property has been drilled in the past. One of the best holes returned 17 ft. of massive sulphide mineralization grading 20.49% zinc, 3.43% copper, 0.64% lead, 10.70 oz. silver and 0.39 oz. gold per ton.

The 9-sq.-mile property is 60 miles from Colony’s Blue Moon deposit which hosts over four million tons of 9.6% zinc, 1.2% copper, 0.06 oz. gold and 2.2 oz. silver.

In an earlier venture, Atna signed a lease to purchase the Plymouth Rock polymetallic property. Like the Schell Ranch project, Plymouth Rock is in Calaveras Cty., a district where a number of mines are currently operating.

Assays from dump samples on this property returned good values in zinc, lead, copper, silver and gold (up to 2.4 oz.). The company said the samples appear to be from an exhalative carbonate bed above a feeder stockwork/silicified zone. The feeder zone is reported to have returned anomalous gold values.

Atna plans to carry out detailed mapping and sampling of surface and underground workings, geophysics and diamond drilling.

The company will also be looking to acquire other prospects in the Foothills belt which roughly parallels California’s famed Mother Lode gold district. The Foothills belt deposits are reported to show close geologic similarities to other volcanogenic deposits, particularly the Kuroko deposits of Japan.