Oct 6 2010
Alto Ventures Ltd. is pleased to announce the assay results from three recently completed drill holes testing the Sanders Zone at the East Coldstream Gold Deposit ("Deposit") in Ontario. The holes reported are part of an 8,000 m program which was designed to (1) further test the three (Main, East and North) zones for which historical resources were estimated and (2) to test the Sanders Zone which lies 500 m northeast of the Main Zone but not included in the historical resource estimates.
The work is being carried out by Foundation Resources Inc (TSX VENTURE:FDN) which is the Project Operator and is funding this exploration program to earn an interest in the Coldstream Property. Results from holes testing the other three zones were reported previously.
Drill hole C-10-37 intersected near surface mineralization. Holes C-10-38 and C-10-39 tested the interpreted northeast trending plunge line below C-10-37 and both intersected significant gold. Hole C-10-39 cut multiple higher-grade gold intercepts (4.42 g/t gold over 9.0 m and 4.72 g/t gold over 4.50 m) within a 35.65 metre-wide mineralized zone averaging 2.10 g/t gold. Results from C-10-39 verify that gold mineralization extends down plunge and is open at depth.
The Sanders Zone was also tested by hole C-10-22 as part of the 2010 winter drill program. C-10-22 intersected 1.16 g/t gold over 27.46 m.
The Sanders Zone is one of four northeast striking mineralized zones that extend for approximately 1.5 km along strike. A historical resource estimate was calculated for three of the zones (Main, East and North) by Noranda in 1991 but the Sanders Zone was not included in this calculation as there was insufficient drilling. However, previous holes by Lacana, Alto and Foundation have confirmed that there is significant gold mineralization at the Sanders Zone and the current holes C-10-37 to 39 further suggest that with additional drilling, the Sanders Zone may add to the size to the historical resources reported by Noranda.
The principal objectives of the current program and these holes are to infill the gaps between wide spaced historic holes, to expand the area of mineralization and to generate sufficient data required for the preparation of an NI43-101compliant resource calculation.
Results reported from the first 13 holes of the current program (on July 21, September 8, and September 22, 2010) and those reported from the 2010 winter program are very encouraging and indicate that each of the gold zones contains sections of higher gold grades within wide envelopes of gold mineralization such as 3.07 g/t gold over 13.9 m within a 34.5 m wide interval averaging 1.93 g/t gold and wide zones of lower grade including 111.3 m averaging 1.12 g/t gold with a higher grade section of 8.68 g/t gold over 6.3 m. Gold is associated with disseminated pyrite and occurs within strongly sheared and hydrothermally altered (silica, albite, sericite, magnetite and hematite) mafic to intermediate metavolcanic rocks and quartz-feldspar porphyry intrusive rocks.
Additional results will be released as they are made available.
Quality Assurance and Quality Control
Drill core processing included descriptive logging and selection of samples for geochemical analyses. The NQ2-size core was cut in two halves using a stationary rock saw at the field camp in Kashabowie, Ontario. One-half of the core was delivered to the sample preparation lab of ALS Chemex Laboratory in Thunder Bay where they were crushed and a 1000-gram pulp was prepared. The pulp was then shipped to ALS Chemex Laboratory in North Vancouver, B.C. for analyses. The gold assaying method uses a standard Fire Assay with ICP-AES technique on a 30-gram pulp material taken from a 1000g split from the submitted sample. Any sample that exceeded upper detection limit of 10 ppm or grams was re-analyzed by the same Fire Assay method but with gravimetric finish. Commercially prepared standards and blanks were inserted by Foundation every 20 samples to insure precision of the results. ALS Chemex inserted its own standards, blanks and carried out duplicate analyses on sample pulps to ensure internal lab quality control. For regular Fire Assay technique with an ICP-AES finish, the lab inserted 1 blank at the beginning, 2 standards at random intervals, and 3 duplicates were analyzed at the end of the batch of every 84 samples. For the Fire Assay method with gravimetric finish, inserting 1 blank, 2 standards, and 1 duplicate followed the same procedure on a batch of every 20 samples.
Ike Osmani. P.Geo., is the Qualified Person for Foundation Resources Inc who has supervised the program.
About the East Coldstream Deposit:
The Deposit, with historically reported resources of 5.1 million tonnes averaging 1.4 g/t gold was discovered by Noranda Exploration Ltd and was delineated by 37 diamond drill holes between 1988 and 1991. Noranda prepared the historical resource estimate in 1991 however a "qualified person" (as that term is defined in NI 43-101) has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as current mineral resources. The Company is not treating the historical estimate as current mineral resources (as defined in NI 43-101) and thus the historical estimate should not be replied upon. Gold mineralization starts on surface and this resource estimate was based on relatively shallow drilling at three zones (the Main, North, and East zones). The historical resource does not include the gold mineralization at the Sanders Zone which was drilled by Lacana Mining Corp. (1989) and Alto Ventures Ltd. (2006). The Sanders Zone is located northeast of the Main Zone and south of the East Zone and was further tested by one hole (C-10-22) during the 2010 winter program. Hole C-10-22 intersected 27.46 m wide zone averaging 1.16 g/t gold, including 10.05 g/t gold over 2.1 m.
The Coldstream property lies adjacent to the Moss Lake gold deposit where recently reported NI43-101 resource estimates include 1.1 million ounces in total indicated and 0.52 million ounces in the total inferred categories.
About the Coldstream Project
The Coldstream Property includes 5,394 hectares of staked and patented mining claims along the Trans Canada Highway 115 km west of the City of Thunder Bay, Ontario. The area is road accessible and has excellent infrastructure with a major power line and CN rail line passing just north of the property. Skilled labour is readily available locally.
The property is under an Option Agreement with Foundation Resources Inc. Foundation is the operator and is funding the current exploration program to earn an initial 60% interest. Foundation then has the option to earn an addition 10%.
For more details regarding the Company's projects, please visit our website at www.altoventures.com.
Mike Koziol, P. Geo., P.Eng. and Alto's President and CEO is the Qualified Person who has reviewed and approved this news release.