Drilling Commences at Atna's Clover Project

Thursday, October 09, 2008 9:01 AM

Symbols: ATN, AUY

GOLDEN, Colo., Oct. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Atna Resources Ltd. ('Atna') - (TSX: ATN) has been informed by Yamana Gold Inc. (TSX: YRI) (NYSE: AUY) that it has commenced a second round of drilling on Atna's Clover project in Elko County, Nevada. Yamana's program at the Clover project will include up to 10 reverse circulation rotary drill holes (8,000 to 9,000 feet) to follow-up the encouraging gold and silver results intersected in the 2007 drilling. In 2007, Yamana cut several zones of gold mineralization in the Clover Hill target area including:

    -- 35 feet grading 0.321 ounce per ton ('opt') gold and 0.54 opt silver
       (hole CV006) and,
    -- 25 feet grading 0.03 opt gold and 7.97 opt silver (hole CV007).

The current program will focus on expansion of this zone and test new target areas on the property.

The Clover project is a low-sulphidation, vein-hosted, epithermal gold prospect located adjacent to the Midas Trough within the Northern Nevada Rift. Clover's geologic setting is similar to Newmont Mining's Ken Snyder (Midas) mine, which is in a similar package of volcanic rocks adjacent to the Midas Trough 10 miles further east. Additional targets to be tested on the property include a geophysical anomaly in the Jake Creek structural corridor near the occurrence of high-grade gold bearing float located one to 1.5 miles north of the Yamana drilling done in 2007.

Yamana may earn a 51 percent interest in the Clover property by incurring exploration expenditures of US$3,300,000 and making payments to Atna totaling $635,000 before June 19, 2010. Yamana may elect to increase its interest to 70 percent by completing a prefeasibility study within 30 months of vesting in its initial 51 percent interest in the project.

Yamana is a Canadian gold producer with significant gold production, gold development stage properties, exploration properties, and land positions in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Central America and the United States. Yamana is producing gold and other precious metals in addition to significant copper production.