Aton Reports New Surface Sampling Results From the Retained Exploration Areas at Abu Marawat, Including 183 g/t Au From Bohlog, 125 g/t Au From Semna, and 67.4 g/t Au From Kab Amira

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 19, 2024 / Aton Resources Inc. (TSXV:AAN) ("Aton" or the "Company") updates investors on the progress of its ongoing exploration programmes within the retained exploration areas of the Company's Abu Marawat Concession ("Abu Marawat" or the "Concession") in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, including the results of recent surface sampling at several of its regional targets.

Highlights:

• Aton has recently undertaken further sampling and mapping programmes over several of its regional targets in the Abu Marawat Concession retained exploration areas;
• A total of 258 selective grab and non-selective surface channel were collected from the Black Gaharish, Bohlog, Kab Amira, Semna and Zeno prospect areas (Figure 1). A further 7 blank and duplicate QAQC samples were also submitted for analysis;
• 38 samples were collected from the Black Gaharish prospect area, returning assays including 29.9 g/t Au and 9.46 g/t Au;
• 7 samples were collected from the Bohlog prospect area, returning assays including 183 g/t Au and 14.65 g/t Au;
• 112 samples were collected from the Kab Amira prospect area, returning assays including 67.4 g/t Au, 44.9 g/t Au and 29.8 g/t Au;
• 42 samples were collected from the Semna regional prospect area, returning assays including 125 g/t Au, 36.3 g/t Au and 32.5 g/t Au;
• 59 samples were collected from the Zeno regional prospect area, returning assays including 45.1 g/t Au, 26.9 g/t Au and 24.5 g/t Au;
• The phase 2 diamond drilling programme has been completed at the Semna prospect, with 28 holes completed for a total drilled meterage of 4,701m. The Company has also now completed a programme of surface sampling and started a c. 3,000m programme of shallow and horizontal diamond drilling at the Abu Marawat deposit, designed to test a highly prospective and previously undrilled area.

"This is another set of excellent surface sampling results, which yet again demonstrate the potential of the Abu Marawat Concession, including the newly identified Kab Amira area, and the very widespread development of gold mineralisation at surface across the areas that have been retained for further exploration" said Tonno Vahk, CEO. "We are proceeding with our exploration programmes on the retained exploration areas, with the clearly defined objective of bringing them into the exploitation lease within the next 4 years. The follow-up phase 2 diamond drilling programme has been completed at Semna, and we look forward to releasing the results of this programme very shortly. We have now returned to the Abu Marawat deposit for the first time since 2012, and where we will be drilling potentially high grade areas outside the existing NI 43-101 resource which were not drilled previously due to the difficulty of access in steep terrain. We are excited by the recent identification by our field team of new mineralised structures at surface in the area we will be drilling. Now that the JV company Abu Marawat Gold Mines, which will operate the Hamama and Rodruin exploitation lease, has been established, we will be pushing ahead with the development of the Hamama West gold mine, which will be the first mine that we plan to develop on the Abu Marawat Concession."

Abu Marawat regional sampling programme

The Company has continued its mapping and sampling programmes over the retained exploration areas in recent months, as part of its long term strategy to ultimately incorporate all of its prospective targets into the Abu Marawat exploitation lease, which is valid for an initial period of 20 years. Many of the Company's main exploration targets have been exploited in recent years by artisanal miners, predominantly since the Company's suspension of field activities in 2020 as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, although the Company successfully evicted these illegal miners during 2023 from the Concession. This recent programme continues the sampling and mapping work completed in 2023 (see news releases dated May 29, 2023, June 26, 2023 and July 31, 2023).

Sampling was undertaken at Semna (regional), Bohlog, Zeno, and Black Gaharish and at the recently identified Kab Amira prospect area (Figure 1), predominantly on previously unidentified mineralised structures that have been exploited by the artisanal miners in recent years. The sampling has again confirmed the presence of a well mineralised c. 20 km long corridor stretching from Sir Bakis in the west to the Semna East area on the margin of the Gaharish pluton, including the Sir Bakis, Massaghat, Bohlog, Zeno, Kab Amira, Black Gaharish, Semna and Semna East areas. Mineralisation through this belt is orogenic in style, typically consisting of shear-hosted and structurally controlled high grade quartz veins. To date only the immediate Semna gold mine area, and the central Zeno area have been drill tested. The Company is planning to undertake RC percussion drilling on some of the most promising targets in the retained exploration areas later in 2024, and the results of this current programme will inform the design of these upcoming programmes.

Samples collected in this programme were predominantly selective manually taken grab and grab composite samples, with relatively subordinate c. 0.5-1m long non-selective in situ chip channel samples across potentially mineralised structures. A total of 265 samples were collected from the programme including 7 QAQC samples, consisting of 5 blank and 2 duplicate samples. All samples were analysed for gold, silver and copper, with most of the samples also analysed for lead and zinc. Selected results from the programme are presented in Table 1, and full assay results are presented in Appendix A.