The Conversation (0)
Athena Gold Corporation (CSE:ATHA)(OTCQB:AHNRF) ("Athena" or the "Company") is pleased to report additional results from its 2024 regional prospecting and sampling program at the 100%-owned Excelsior Springs project in Nevada's Walker Lane Trend. The program proved successful in providing new geologic interpretations and defining new, untested zones of prospective mineralization. On the back of this program, the Company expanded its landholdings by approximately 68 hectares.
"One of the drivers behind the Fall 2024 program was to confirm whether prospective ground exists outside the Buster Trend, which to date, has been the main target of focus at Excelsior Springs. We are happy to report the identification of the new Rhino Zone, in addition to the high-grade silver and antimony potential revealed at the Blue Dick Trend. Importantly, both these targets remain untested by the drill bit. We believe a larger-scale program is warranted in order to adequately explore such a target-rich project," stated Koby Kushner, President & CEO of Athena Gold.
Highlights:
- The newly defined Rhino Zone, located to the northeast of the project area, returned high-grade gold on surface, with grab sample assays returning up to 27.1 g/t Au, 49 g/t Ag, and 1.4% Pb (see Figure 2).
- Results from Blue Dick, as previously reported, returned up to 6,630 g/t Ag (Sample K024547; refer to the Company's press release dated January 23, 2025). In addition, the remaining analytical results from this sample returned high-grade antimony of 1.53% Sb.
- Antimony is designated as a critical metal by both the United States and Canada due to its essential role in national security, energy infrastructure, and industrial manufacturing.
- On the back of the successful 2024 exploration program, the Company recently expanded its land position through staking, increasing the project footprint by 68 hectares to better capture the Rhino and Blue Dick Trends (see Figure 1).
- The Company continues to receive third-party interest regarding potential joint venture partnerships and earn-in agreements across its Nevada portfolio.
Figure 1: Map of the Excelsior Springs project highlighting the various mineralized trends, historic drilling, additional staking, and recent sampling completed by Athena Gold Corporation in November 2024.
Figure 2: Map of the Rhino Zone showing recent sampling, the approximate outline of the Rhino Zone, and the area of newly acquired ground.
A total of 95 surface grab samples were collected during the recent mapping and prospecting program, conducted by Big Rock Exploration in November. Results from the program have highlighted that the Excelsior Springs project is host to various styles of mineralization, lending itself to varying exploration targets ranging from narrow vein, high-grade targets to low-grade, bulk-tonnage targets.
Buster Trend: This target area is host to the vast majority of the historical exploration work at Excelsior Springs to date, with most activity focused on the historic underground Buster Mine, which averaged >40 g/t Au of past production. Drilling at the easternmost extension of this trend returned 5.35 g/t Au over 33.5 m from hole DB-23 in the Western Slope Zone, approximately 400 m east of the historic workings at Buster (refer to the Company's press release dated June 29, 2022).
Ridge Trend: Mineralization in this region has a distinct intrusion-related signature with elevated As-Bi-Mo-Cu-Hg-Te. The Ridge Trend represents a potential low-grade, high-tonnage target. Historic drilling has returned up to 24.4 m at 1.09 g/t Au (GE-14) starting at only 7.6 m below surface (refer to the Company's press release dated Sept 14, 2023).
Rhino Trend: This newly recognized trend has similar characteristics to the Ridge Trend in that it is a low-grade, high-tonnage target with potential for high-grade Au values within the broader target area. No known drilling has been completed in this area, and additional staking has been completed in 2025 to secure the zone.
Blue Dick Trend: The Blue Dick area represents a series of Au-Ag-Cu-Pb-Sb-Zn epithermal vein systems. Several historic workings are documented in the area including the Blue Dick Mine, however no known drilling has been conducted in the area. In November of 2024, Athena returned samples of up to 6,630 g/t Ag, 2.28% Cu, 2.4% Pb, and 1.53% Sb along with 5.1 g/t Au, 212 g/t Ag, 2.4% Pb, and 2.84% Zn (refer to the Company's press release dated January 23, 2025). Recent staking expanded the Blue Dick Trend to capture historical high-grade samples.
QA/QC
Analytical work for rock samples was completed by ALS Laboratories, and sample preparation and geochemical analyses were completed in Elko, Nevada. Samples were crushed before a 250-gram split was pulverized to better than 85%, passing 75 microns. Rock samples were analyzed for gold by fire assay using a 50-gram charge with an atomic absorption spectroscopy finish. If assay results exceed 10.0 g/t gold, the sample rejects are analyzed by 50-gram fire assay with a gravimetric finish. Sampling and analytical procedures are subject to a Quality Assurance and Quality Control program that includes duplicate samples and analytical standards.
Qualified Person
Technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Benjamin Kuzmich, P.Geo., a geoscientist and qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101.
About Athena Gold Corporation
Athena is engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the acquisition of mineral property assets. Its objective is to locate and develop economic precious and base metal properties of merit and to conduct additional exploration drilling and studies on its projects across North America. Athena's Laird Lake project is situated in the Red Lake Gold District of Ontario, covering over 4,000 hectares along more than 10 km of the Balmer-Confederation Assemblage contact, where recent surface sampling results returned up to 373 g/t Au. This underexplored area is road-accessible, located about 10 km west of West Red Lake Gold's Madsen mine and 34 km northwest of Kinross Gold's Great Bear project. Meanwhile, its Excelsior Springs Au-Ag project is located in the prolific Walker Lane Trend in Nevada. Excelsior Springs spans over 1,500 hectares and covers at least three historic mines along the Palmetto Mountain trend, where the Company is following up on a recent shallow oxide gold discovery, with drill results including 5.35 g/t Au over 33.5 m.
For further information about Athena Gold Corporation, please visit www.athenagoldcorp.com.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors
Koby Kushner
President and Chief Executive Officer
For further information, please contact:
Athena Gold Corporation
Koby Kushner, President and Chief Executive Officer
Phone: 416-846-6164
Email: kobykushner@athenagoldcorp.com
CHF Capital Markets
Cathy Hume, Chief Executive Officer
Phone: 416-868-1079 x 251
Email: cathy@chfir.com
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including, without limitation, statements regarding future exploration plans, future results from exploration, and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: "believes", "will", "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "estimates", ''plans", "may", "should", ''potential", "scheduled", or variations of such words and phrases and similar expressions, which, by their nature, refer to future events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. In making the forward-looking statements in this press release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that there will be investor interest in future financings, market fundamentals will result in sustained precious metals demand and prices, the receipt of any necessary permits, licenses and regulatory approvals in connection with the future exploration and development of the Company's projects in a timely manner.
The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of various risk factors as disclosed in the final long form prospectus of the Company dated August 31, 2021.
Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements in this press release or incorporated by reference herein, except as otherwise stated.
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Athena Gold
Investor Insight
Athena Gold’s high-grade gold exploration assets in two of the world’s safest and most prolific mining jurisdictions, backed by a highly technical and entrepreneurial leadership team, make it a compelling investment opportunity worth examining.
Overview
Athena Gold (CSE:ATHA,OTCQB:AHNR) is a dynamic gold exploration company focused on advancing its newly acquired asset in Ontario’s Red Lake Gold Camp in Canada, and its gold discovery project in Nevada’s Excelsior Springs in the US. These projects are located in two of the world’s safest, tier-one mining jurisdictions, where major mining companies are increasingly refocusing their exploration efforts due to geopolitical stability and established mining infrastructure.
Ontario’s Red Lake and Nevada’s Walker Lane Trend are globally renowned for their high-grade gold deposits. By operating in these regions, Athena Gold aligns itself with the recent trend toward safer, more predictable mining jurisdictions.
The company is guided by a young, entrepreneurial and highly technical leadership team, uniquely equipped to unlock the potential of its assets through cost-effective and innovative exploration strategies. Athena Gold is committed to discovery-driven growth, prioritizing projects with world-class potential.
Company Highlights
- Athena Gold operates in two of the world’s safest and most prolific mining jurisdictions—Nevada and Ontario—benefiting from established infrastructure, lower geopolitical risk, regulatory stability, and high exploration potential.
- Flagship Projects - Laird Lake and Excelsior Springs
- Laird Lake: Situated in Ontario's Red Lake Gold District, renowned for producing over 30 Moz of gold, with recent sampling identifying bonanza-grade gold up to 373 g/t gold. The project is in a pre-discovery phase.
- Excelsior Springs: Located in Nevada’s Walker Lane Trend, this project features historical high-grade gold production and recent discoveries, including a Western Slope intercept of 5.35 g/t gold over 33.5 m, with significant open-pit potential.
- Focused on advancing projects through grassroots exploration and systematic geological work to unlock high-grade deposits.
- Led by a technical and entrepreneurial team with a track record of delivering value through innovative exploration approaches.
- A lean and focused share structure with ~25 percent insider ownership ensures alignment with shareholder interests.
Key Projects
Laird Lake Gold Project
The Laird Lake project, encompassing 4,158 hectares, is located in Ontario’s Red Lake Gold District, an iconic mining camp producing over 30 million ounces of gold. This project spans over 10 kilometers of the Balmer-Confederation Assemblage contact, a key geological structure historically hosting major gold deposits, including the renowned Great Bear mine, now owned by Kinross (TSX:K,NYSE:KGC), and Madsen mine, owned by West Red Lake Gold (TSXV:WRLG:,OTCQB:WRLGF).
Recent sampling has confirmed the project’s exceptional potential, including a bonanza-grade surface grab sample returning 373 grams per ton (g/t) gold — the highest recorded at the site. Mineralization has been identified over a 2.2-kilometer strike length, with further extensions open to the east and west. Strategic proximity to major operations, such as West Red Lake Gold Mines' flagship Madsen mine and Kinross Gold’s Great Bear project, further enhances its appeal.
Map of Laird Lake project, showing selected assays from the October 2024 sampling program.
Athena Gold is executing a systematic exploration strategy, with plans for a property-wide geochemistry survey in 2025. These efforts aim to identify drill targets for a winter-spring drilling campaign, focusing on high-grade zones and expanding the project’s resource potential.
Excelsior Springs Gold Project
The Excelsior Springs project is located in Nevada’s Walker Lane Trend, a prolific mining district with more than 40 million ounces of historical gold output. Major mining companies already operating in the Walker Lane trend include Kinross Gold, AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU) and Centerra Gold (TSX:CG). Located on patented and unpatented ground with year-round access, the project boasts a rich history of high-grade gold mining, including the Buster Mine, which produced 19,200 ounces at grades exceeding 40 g/t gold in the late 19th century.
Athena Gold has identified significant potential for Excelsior Springs, with near-surface gold oxide mineralization. A standout discovery in the Western Slope zone yielded an impressive intercept of 5.35 g/t gold over 33.5 meters, supported by broader mineralized zones such as 1.02 g/t gold over 52 meters. These results suggest the potential for an open-pit mining operation, making the project an attractive prospect for resource expansion.
The project is geologically analogous to AngloGold’s Silicon project, which has demonstrated similar mineralization and structural settings. Excelsior Springs also benefits from a multi-phase exploration plan. A recent property-wide structural mapping program is refining the understanding of geological controls, with trenching and targeted geochemical sampling already underway.
Upcoming exploration phases will include oriented core drilling to delineate high-grade zones further and test for additional deposits.
Leadership Team
David Goodman - Chairman
David Goodman transitioned from a successful legal career to the investment management industry, becoming a partner, vice-president and portfolio manager at the firm behind Dynamic Funds. As president and CEO of Dynamic Funds and later DundeeWealth, he led the firm to significant growth, increasing assets under management from $5 billion to approximately $50 billion. Under his leadership, the firm was recognized multiple times as Fund Company of the Year at the Canadian Investment Awards. Goodman has also served on the boards of DundeeWealth, Repadre Capital, Dundee and SickKids Foundation.
Koby Kushner - President & CEO
Koby Kushner is a licensed professional engineer in Ontario and a CFA charter holder, with a background in mining engineering and equity research. He has worked at several mines in Ontario and Manitoba, including Hemlo (Barrick Gold) and Detour, gaining experience across all stages of project development. As an equity research analyst at Red Cloud Securities, a mining-focused investment bank, he covered more than 100 companies across various development stages and commodities, with a focus on precious and energy metals.
John Power - Secretary & Director
John Power has been with Athena Gold since its inception, serving in various capacities, including president and CEO. He managed the Langtry silver project, developing an NI 43-101 compliant resource of more than 60 million ounces of silver. Power was the president of Redwood Microcap Fund, where he increased shareholder value sixfold. He has also served as a director and/or officer of Magellan Gold and co-managing member of Silver Saddle Resources, a private entity owning mining claims in Nevada.
Ty Minnick - CFO
Ty Minnick is a certified public accountant with more than 25 years of experience across various industries. Since 2011, he has worked with Augusta Gold (formerly Bullfrog Gold), serving as chief financial officer until October 2020, and continuing as a consultant thereafter. He has also been associated with Grand Mesa CPAs and served as director of finance and administration for the Grand Junction Regional Airport Authority.
Ben Kuzmich - VP Exploration
Ben Kuzmich is a geologist with a strong track record of significant discoveries, driving the technical aspects of Athena’s projects. His expertise includes porphyry and epithermal systems, with a focus on cost-efficient exploration.
High-grade gold exploration in Ontario and Nevada
Sranan Gold
Investor Insight
Sranan Gold offers early-stage exposure to a high-impact gold discovery in Suriname’s Guiana Shield, one of the world’s most underexplored gold belts. Backed by the same technical team behind some of the region’s largest gold discoveries, Sranan is a high-leverage discovery story in a mining-friendly jurisdiction.
Overview
Sranan Gold (CSE:SRAN,FSE:P84) is a junior explorer operating in Suriname, a South American nation producing more than 600,000 oz of gold per year. Sranan’s main asset is within Suriname’s prolific Guiana Shield, one of the world’s most underexplored gold belts.
Sample collected from the Tapanahony project’s Poeketi pit.
The company’s flagship asset, the 29,000-hectare Tapanahony gold project, overlays a historic mining belt with strong geochemical and structural indicators. Sranan’s objective is straightforward: convert local knowledge, legacy drill data and modern tools into an inaugural gold resource over a 4.5 km mineralized corridor.
Backed by one of the most credentialed gold discovery teams in Suriname, credited for the Merian, Rosebel and Saramacca deposits, the company is targeting hard-rock gold potential beneath proven saprolite zones with plans to fast-track drilling, build community partnerships and expand its concession footprint.
Company Highlights
- District-scale land position: The 29,000-hectare Tapanahony project covers one of Suriname’s oldest and most productive artisanal mining districts, offering untested hard-rock upside within the Guiana Shield, home to numerous multi-million-ounce gold deposits.
- Immediate drill targets: A 10,000-metre diamond drilling program is set to kick off in 2025 across the 4.5 km Poeketi-Randy trend, targeting high-grade shear zones validated by historic IAMGOLD drilling.
- World-class discovery pedigree: The technical team has led or co-led discoveries at Merian (7 Moz, Newmont), Rosebel (13.7 Moz, now Zijin) and Saramacca (1.5 Moz).
- Deep in-country knowledge: Geologists are locally trained at Anton de Kom University and have decades of experience in Suriname’s regolith-dominated terrain.
Key Project
Tapanahony Gold Project
The Tapanahony gold project is Sranan’s flagship asset, covering a 29,000-hectare land package in southeastern Suriname. The project lies within the Guiana Shield, a well-endowed Paleoproterozoic terrane that hosts multiple Tier-1 gold systems. The property sits at the intersection of regional NW-striking structures, the large NE-SW Tapanahony structure and older NE-SW fabric, forming a favorable setting for orogenic gold emplacement. These structural fabrics, crenulated by later deformation events, are visible in recent LiDAR and magnetic datasets and provide excellent ground preparation for high-grade shear-hosted deposits.
Local miners have long exploited the saprolite horizons here, especially around the Poeketi-Randy zone, and Sranan’s exploration strategy is to transition that surface gold production into a defined, hard-rock resource. The project has seen more than US$10 million in historical exploration, including geochemical soil surveys, auger and panning programs by the UN and Golden Star, and 4,000 metres of diamond drilling by IAMGOLD. They have confirmed the presence of extensive mineralization, including intercepts such as 4.2 grams per ton (g/t) gold over 13.5 m and 39.3 g/t gold over 2 m at the Randy pit. These results suggest steeply dipping, fault-controlled mineralization within a metavolcanic host package, drawing parallels to the structurally hosted gold at the Saramacca, Antino, Merian and Rosebel mines.
The 2025 Phase 1 program is targeting this trend with 10,000 metres of diamond drilling. It will infill and extend the 4.5 km mineralized corridor and test additional parallel shear zones revealed by LiDAR and soil geochemistry in the western lobe of the concession. Sranan plans to reprocess historical drill data, conduct soil/silt sampling, trenching and trench mapping, with field teams prioritizing locations where artisanal mining is ongoing but remains underexplored by modern methods.
Geophysical interpretation highlights a property-scale NW shear zone crosscutting a penetrative NE-SW fabric, which has led to localized folding and thickened mineralized zones. Commonly described by the team as the “double folded” system, they extend across eastern Suriname into Guyana and French Guiana. This orogenic system is thought to be analogous to the geology that underpins other major discoveries in the belt.
Sranan’s Phase 1 campaign also aims to generate new targets through high-resolution LiDAR imaging, which has already revealed three parallel mineralized corridors and topographic inversions associated with lateritic terraces, a common concealment mechanism for mineralization in this region. Pending early success, the company plans to expand drilling into the western lobe, pursue adjoining concessions, and delineate a resource.
Management Team
Oscar Louzada – CEO and Director
Fluent in Dutch and active in Suriname for over a decade, Oscar Louzada has taken two Suriname-based exploration companies to IPO (Sela Kriki and Nassau, now Miata Metals). With 25+ years’ experience in natural resources finance (Canaccord, Investec), he brings capital markets depth and local execution credibility.
John Williamson – Chairman
Geologist and co-founder of Founders Metals, John Williamson is credited with >10 Moz in gold discoveries and nearly $1 billion raised. He was an early believer in Tapanahony’s potential and a key seed investor.
Dennis LaPoint – EVP, Exploration and Corporate Development
Dennis LaPoint is a veteran geologist with 35+ years’ experience. LaPoint discovered Merian (Newmont, 7 Moz) and oversaw major exploration programs at Rosebel and Omai. He leads strategy and resource targeting, and sits on multiple boards, including ASBOG. He also teaches geology at Anton de Kom University in Paramaribo in Suriname.
Rayiez Bhoelan – VP, Exploration
A Surinamese national and key member of the Saramacca discovery team (IAMGOLD, 1.5 Moz), Rayiez Bhoelan specializes in regolith geology and shear zone mapping. He has worked across the Guiana Shield at Omai and Founders Metals, and lectures locally on geochemistry.
Mario Stifano – Director and Audit Chair
Mario Stifano is a CPA and seasoned mining executive with prior leadership roles at Cordoba Minerals, Lake Shore Gold and Galantas Gold. He led the 2020 acquisition and re-listing of Omai Gold Mines in Guyana.
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