Aton Reports the Results of Surface Sampling Programmes Including 67.5 g/t Au From Abu Gaharish, 54.9 g/t Au From Bohlog, and 27.6 g/t Au From Semna

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 29, 2023 / Aton Resources Inc. (TSXV:AAN) ("Aton" or the "Company") is pleased to update investors on the results of recent surface sampling programmes at several of its regional target areas, undertaken ahead the ongoing reverse circulation percussion ("RC") drilling programme at the Company's 100% owned Abu Marawat Concession ("Abu Marawat" or the "Concession"), in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.

Highlights:

• Aton has recently undertaken several sampling and mapping programmes in advance of the now started RC drilling programme;
• A total of 104 selective grab and non-selective surface channel samples were collected from the Semna, Abu Gaharish, Bohlog, Sir Bakis and Massaghat prospects (Figure 1);
• 25 samples were collected from the Semna prospect, returning assays including 27.6 g/t Au, 24.0 g/t Au and 16.95 g/t Au;
• 40 samples were collected from the Abu Gaharish prospect, returning assays including 67.5 g/t Au, 23.3 g/t Au and 16.5 g/t Au;
• 17 samples were collected from the Bohlog prospect, returning assays including 54.9 g/t Au and 48.4 g/t Au;
• 8 samples were collected from the Sir Bakis prospect, returning assays including 9.62 g/t Au and 6.61 g/t Au;
• 14 samples were collected from the Massaghat prospect, returning assays including 34.5 g/t Au.

"We are pleased to be able to announce another set of exciting surface sampling results from Abu Marawat, which gives us real confidence for the regional RC drill programme that has now started" said Tonno Vahk, Interim CEO. "This sampling has been undertaken during the last months, as we have been planning up the drilling at our regional targets. The team have been very busy on the ground, preparing for the drilling and we are very happy that it is now underway. As well as the work in the field, we continue to push ahead with our main goal for 2023, which is our application for the mining licence at Abu Marawat. Work on the Rodruin and Hamama West mineral resource estimates is ongoing and the metallurgical testwork programmes are now almost completed. The anticipated issuance of the mining licence at Abu Marawat will be a transformational moment for Aton, and we continue to work closely with our partners at the Ministry of Petroleum and the Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority to achieve this shared goal."

Abu Marawat regional sampling programme

The Company has undertaken several ad hoc surface sampling programmes, as part of its preparation and planning activities for the regional RC exploration drilling programme that has now started (see news release dated May 19, 2023). All the Company's main exploration targets have recently been exploited by artisanal miners, predominantly since the Company's suspension of field activities in 2020 as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. This has provided the opportunity to carry out additional sampling and mapping of the known structures, as well as previously unidentified mineralised structures that have been exploited by the artisanal miners. The sampling consisted predominantly of selective grab and chip sampling, with fewer 1-2m long non-selective in situ channel samples across potentially mineralised structures.

Sampling was undertaken at the Semna, abu Gaharish, Bohlog, Sir Bakis and Massaghat prospect areas (Figure 1). Selected results from the programme are shown in Table 1, and full assay results are presented in Appendix A. Further sampling has also been undertaken at Zeno and Semna, and the results of this more recent work will be reported once they become available.

Discussion of results

Semna Gold Mine

The historic Semna gold mine is located approximately 27km east-northeast of the Company's Hamama West mineral deposit and 13km northeast of the Rodruin deposit (Figure 1), and has a long history of mining, dating back to the Old Kingdom period, over 4,500 years ago. In modern times, Semna was mined between 1904-1906 by two British companies. It has been reported that the Semna mine worked the widest vein exploited during the British era of mining in Egypt, reaching up to 6m width in places, and mining grades of over 2 ounces per ton were reported at the time. Reports from the Mining Journal from 1905 indicated that some remnant pillars within ancient Pharaonic-era stopes assayed up to 5.5 ounces per ton gold. In recent years the Semna area has recently been heavily exploited by illegal artisanal miners.

Table 1: Selected surface sampling results

The gold mineralisation at Semna is strongly structurally controlled, and hosted in quartz diorite, consisting of at least 4 distinct and sub-parallel zones (Figure B3), striking approximately east-west. The Main Vein and the South Vein zones have been the primary focus of historic mining, but there are also workings developed on other structures (Figure B3). Mapping of recent artisanal excavations and also drill access road cuttings has indicated the presence of previously unidentified structures and apparently mineralised quartz veins, for example the SE Vein (Figure B3). This concurs with the observations and conclusions from the 2018 GPR geophysical survey, which identified numerous anomalous responses away from known mineralised structures, indicating potential for the discovery of hitherto unidentified high grade mineralised veins and structures at Semna (see new release dated March 21, 2018).

During the current sampling programme 25 samples were collected from the Semna gold mine area, with selected results shown in Table 1, and all results provided in Appendix A. 3 of the samples were non-selective chip channel samples, and the remainder were selective grab or grab composite samples. Aton has previously returned channel sampling intercepts including 5.17 g/t Au over an interval of 9.7m at surface, and individual channel samples grading up to 18.05 g/t Au (see news release November 22, 2017) from Semna.

6 (24%) of the Semna samples from the current programme returned assays greater than 10 g/t Au, 14 (56%) returned assays greater than 5 g/t Au and 19 (76%) returned assays greater than 2 g/t Au (Figure B3), with all 25 samples averaging 7.42 g/t Au in grade. Individual results included 27.60 g/t Au from a non-selective chip channel across the Central Vein zone (sample AHA-39075), as well as 24.00 g/t Au and 16.95 g/t Au (samples AHA-39082 and AHA-39083), from 2 previously unidentified structures approximately 1 km