Pinson is located near Winnemucca, in Humboldt County, Nevada, on one of the premier gold trends in northern Nevada. The mine is in the south-central portion of the Getchell Gold Belt southwest of Barrick's Getchell/Turquoise Ridge Mines and Newmont's Twin Creeks Mine complex. Gold mineralization is characterized as a Carlin-type, sediment-hosted gold system hosted by the same sequence of Ordovician sedimentary rocks that hosts the gold deposits of Twin Creeks and Turquoise Ridge mines to the north.

The Pinson mine produced 985,000 ounces of gold from 1980 through 1999 by open pit mining and has seen over US$60 million in exploration and development spending on the property since 1998. These expenditures include over US$10 million by Pinson Mining Company ("PMC"), a subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corporation, from 1998 through 2001. In 2004, Atna entered into an agreement to earn a 70 percent interest in the Pinson property. A total of US$14 million was spent by Atna from 2004 through 2006 to earn its 70 percent interest. In 2006, PMC exercised a claw-back right and subsequently spent US$ 36 million to earn a 70 percent interest in the property, with Atna's interest reducing to 30 percent. In August 2011, Atna acquired PMC's 70 percent interest in the four square miles of land (2,480 acres) containing all areas of past gold production and the area containing the currently estimated mineral resources.

As part of this transaction, PMC retained control of 21 square miles of land formerly controlled by the PMC/Atna joint venture outside of the four square miles acquired by Atna. Additionally, Atna and an affiliate of Barrick executed a non-exclusive Ore Milling and Gold Purchase Agreement to process Pinson ores at Barrick's Goldstrike processing facilities.

Exploration and development drilling on the project includes 2,624 drill holes from surface and underground sites for a total of over 1.1 million total feet of drilling. Atna and PMC completed extensive reviews and quality control analyses of historic drill data to develop a state-of-the-art geologic and analytical database for use in resource estimations. From 1998 through 2006, Atna's and PMC's primary exploration focus was on the project's potential underground development opportunities. During this period Atna developed a measured plus indicated resource of 2.5 million tons grading 0.424 oz/ton gold containing 1.1 million ounces gold and an inferred resource of 3.4 million tons grading 0.34 oz/ton gold containing 1.1 million ounces gold at a cut-off grade of 0.20 oz/ton gold (June 2007 NI 43-101 Updated Technical Report; filed on SEDAR). Work by PMC from 2006 through 2009, continued to develop the underground mineralized bodies and evaluated the open pit mine potential of several portions of the property. No resource estimate has been developed for the open pit mining potential remaining at Pinson.

Pinson Project Revised Gold Resource Estimate (0.20 oz/ton Au cutoff)

Substantial work has been completed towards development of an underground mine at Pinson. This includes the construction of office, dry and warehouse facilities and a lined stockpile area on surface. Over four thousand feet of underground workings have been completed and four deep de-watering well were drilled and cased, one of which is currently being operated. Electrical infrastructure suitable for mine operations has been installed and two re-infiltration basins and associated pipelines have been constructed to re-infiltrate water produced in mine dewatering into the valley aquifer. A second portal has been collared and an underground equipment repair shop was constructed..

Pinson Photo Gallery Click to view a selection of photos from Pinson.