Vancouver, B.C., December 11, 2008. Alto Ventures Ltd. (ATV:
TSX-V) and its Joint Venture partner Wescan Goldfield Inc. (WGF:
TSX-V) have completed the 2008 exploration program at Mud Lake in the
Beardmore-Geraldton Gold Belt, Ontario. The property is located south of
the Hercules Project operated by Kodiak Exploration Ltd and north of the
Brookbank Gold Deposit which is reported to contain 629,900 ounces of gold.
The Mud Lake Shear Zone
("MLS") is a major gold-bearing shear structure that extends for
over six kilometres along strike and traverses through the centre of the
property. Several gold occurrences have been exposed in surface trenches
along the MLS and sampling of these returned gold assays as high as 50
grams per tonne (g/t) in grab samples and up to 13.9 g/t gold/1.0 metre in
drill cores in previous work.
The 2008 summer program
was part of a longer term strategy to evaluate each of the gold targets on
the property and included airborne high-resolution magnetometer and XDS/VLF
electromagnetic surveys over the entire property, as well as prospecting,
mechanical stripping and sampling. The surface work was followed by diamond
drilling of 12 holes totalling 1,032 m.
The airborne geophysical
surveys have identified several new targets that will require follow-up
work in 2009. The mechanical stripping has exposed the MLS at several
locations along the MLS including a set of quartz veins that start at the
northeast end of Showing No 6 and extend continuously for 120 m on surface.
Channel sampling of these veins has returned up to 3.0 g/t gold across 1.0
m. Diamond drilling of the trenched areas intersected shearing and quartz
veining including hole MUD08-40 which cut a 6.9 m wide shear zone
containing a quartz vein that is 1.4 m wide. Anomalous gold values of
greater than 100 parts per billion (0.1 g/t) were detected in several drill
holes.
The 2007 and 2008
drilling programs confirmed that the MLS is a major zone of shearing with a
strong associated gold system. A large number of targets remain to be
explored along the MLS including at the Oliver Severn Showing where the
Company previously intersected 13.9 g/t gold across 1.0 m. To date, 42
drill holes have been completed on this property which will assist in
targeting the most prospective areas for the next phase of exploration.
Please visit the Company
website at www.altoventures.com
to learn more about the Mud Lake Project.
The Mud Lake Project is
operated under the terms of the Mud Lake Option Agreement which grants
Wescan the right to earn 50% interest in the property by funding $600,000
in exploration and issuing a total of 150,000 Wescan shares to Alto over
two years.
Quality Assurance/
Quality Control
Core processing included
descriptive logging and selection of samples for analyses. The NQ-size
cores selected for analyses were sawed in half and one half was delivered
to a commercial laboratory by Alto staff for analyses and the other half
retained for future reference. Gold assays were performed at Accurassay
Laboratories in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The gold assaying method uses a
standard Fire Assay with AA finish technique on a 30 gram sub-sample taken
from a 500 gram split from the submitted sample. Commercially prepared
standards were inserted by Alto every 25 samples to ensure precision of the
results. The laboratory ran internal check assays every 10 samples to
ensure lab quality control.
Surface channel samples
are 5 cm wide and cut perpendicular to the strike of the target being
sampled (vein, shear zone or sulphide horizon). The channels were cut
continuously across the width of the sample with a motorized saw using a
diamond saw blade to a depth of 10 cm and then the cut rock was chipped out
with hammer and chisel. The samples were then described by Alto geologists
noting rock types and mineralization and bagged for delivery to the assay
laboratory for quantitative analyses for gold and selected elements. The
samples were analysed at Accurassay Laboratories in Thunder Bay using
standard Fire Assay/AA procedures.
Mike Koziol, P. Geo.,
P.Eng. and Alto's President and Director is the Qualified Person who has
reviewed and approved this news release.
About Alto Ventures
Alto Ventures Ltd. is a
gold exploration and development company with a portfolio of highly
prospective gold properties in the Canadian Shield. The Company is active
in Quebec in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt and in Ontario focussing mainly on
the Beardmore and Shebandowan gold districts. Alto's Management and Board
of Directors have a long and successful track record of creating
shareholder value through systematic exploration, acquisitions and
discovery.