Atac rises on first Rau hole of season

Vancouver – The first hole of the season out the Rau property in the Yukon returned a healthy serving of gold and a nice share price boost for Atac Resources (ATC-V).

Hole 19 cut 28 metres of limestone-hosted, stratabound massive iron and arsenic-rich oxides carrying 24.07 grams gold per tonne, starting 46 metres downhole. According to Atac, true width is approximately 23 metres. Cutting the two high samples – a 2.9-metre interval grading 162 grams gold and a 2.4-metre segment hosting 40.4 grams gold – to just 34 grams gold leaves the 28-metre intercept averaging 10.3 grams gold.

An additional 13.7 metres of oxide starting at 72 metres depth graded 0.39 gram gold.

Investors were certainly pleased with the results of hole 19, lifting Atac’s share price 19¢ or 43% to reach 63¢. The company has a 52-week trading range of 7¢ to 73¢ and has 46 million shares issued.

Hole 19 was a 100-metre step out to the northwest of hole 16, which returned 53.95 metres of oxide mineralization grading 2.69 grams gold. The hole, which was the most northwesterly hole drilled in 2008, ended in oxide mineralization but was abandoned prematurely due to poor ground conditions.

Atac currently has two drills turning at Rau. The larger rig is testing oxide mineralization while the smaller rig is being used to explore extensions of the system along strike, across the trend’s width, and at depth.

Three holes along the same section as hole 19 have already been completed and assay results are expected within a month.

The 790-sq. km Rau property is near Keno Hill in central Yukon, 55 km northeast of the community of Keno City. The property is part of the Tintina gold belt, a prospective geologic setting below the regional-scale Dawson thrust with interwoven Paleozoic shales and silty carbonate rocks.

Atac recently expanded the Rau property by staking another 2,500 claims covering 500 sq. km, to cover additional geochemical and geological targets.

And staking was how Atac got ahold of Rau in the first place. In early 2007 Atac’s team noticed a small intrusion outcrop mapped on a regional geologic map. Based on its characteristics, the company “blind staked” the area. A soil survey then outlined a zone 600 metres long by 300 metres wide carrying grades as high as 11 grams gold.

In 2008 Atac worked through an 18-hole, 3,420-metre drill program that identified gold mineralization within the hinge area of a gently southeasterly-plunging anticline. The most significant assay intervals to date are clustered in a 600-sq. metre zone at the west end of the drill area. Gold values thus far are highest near the fold axis and gradually decrease down the fold limbs. Atac geologists believe the holes drilled to the southeast were not drilled to sufficient depth to intersect the mineralized horizon.

Mineralized intervals average 60 metres. The thickest intersection from the 2008 program came in hole 5, which cut 78.5 metres grading 1.71 grams gold.