BENTON GIVES EXPLORATION UPDATE
Thunder Bay, Ontario: Benton Resources Corp ("Benton" or "the Company") is pleased to provide an exploration update on its various projects and exploration plans for the up coming 2010 field season.
On the Kingurutik Lake Nickel project located approximately 60 kilometers north of the world class Voisey’s Bay nickel-copper-cobalt deposit, the company will commence a diamond drilling program in early July to follow up on two previous years of systematic exploration work completed by Teck Resources Corp. (“Teck”), including airborne electromagnetic and magnetic surveys, mapping, prospecting, sampling and UTEM geophysical surveys. This work identified several high priority EM anomalies associated with large gossanous zones returning high-grade copper and nickel values with grades of up to 6.8% copper and 1.7% nickel. Based on this data, the Company has designed a 12 hole, 3,000 meter diamond drilling program to test six separate target areas outlined by Teck including the P Zone, Red Beard, Bull, Black Beard, and both A and D Grids.
Rio Tinto Exploration Canada Inc., a 100% owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto (“Rio Tinto”) has notified the Company that an exploration program has commenced on the Company’s South Sibley property. The work program including mapping, prospecting and geophysical surveying will search for high grade Copper - Nickel and PGM zones within the Mid-continent rift geological system. Deposits such as Magma Metals Limited’s Thunder Bay North deposit and Rio Tinto’s Eagle and Tamarack deposits have been discovered in similar settings. A diamond drill program will be planned based on the data collected from the current season’s exploration data.
On the Company’s 100% owned Saganaga gold property located 100 kms west of Thunder Bay, exploration work including trenching, channel sampling, geochemical sampling, prospecting and mapping has commenced on several newly discovered gold zones located throughout the property. These discoveries (CC and CK zones) consist of quartz stockwork systems that measure 10-20 meters in width and have been traced for several hundred meters along strike. Surface grab samples from these zones have returned anomalous grades of gold and silver ranging from trace amounts up to 16 gpt gold and 300 gpt silver. In addition, further work including drilling and structural mapping will be completed on the Star and North Star zones.
On the Golden Harp Joint Venture, the Company has commenced line cutting to be followed up by geophysics and mapping on various targets outside the known Cook, MC and Crocker gold zones. A diamond drilling program is planned for later in the year to follow up on the known targets and to test various new targets on the property.
Results of the phase 3 drilling program on the Deloro project, located in Timmins, Ontario have now been received. The recent drilling program tested the north zone, which represents the western extension of the Delnite Mine horizon. Almost all of the drill holes encountered anomalous gold mineralization associated with carbonate altered mafic and ultramafic volcanic rocks and quartz-carbonate-tourmaline veins. Results of the drilling are as follows:
Hole FROM TO CORE WIDTH Au gpt D10-28 no significant results D10-29 no significant results D10-30 83.00 84.00 1.00 0.842 D10-31 218.00 224.00 6.00 0.575 incl. 219.00 220.00 1.00 1.291 and 243.00 244.00 1.00 1.188 and 259.30 264.50 5.20 1.033 incl. 262.00 263.00 1.00 3.310 D10-32 195.00 200.00 5.00 0.511 incl. 195.00 196.00 1.00 1.720 and 270.00 274.00 4.00 1.242 and 333.50 336.50 3.00 0.768 D10-33 and 183.50 186.50 3.00 2.247 incl. 185.00 186.50 1.50 4.200 and 224.00 228.00 4.00 0.651 incl. 227.00 228.00 1.00 2.110
Follow-up work including further testing of the newly discovered south zone, where previous drilling by the Company intersected up to 8.57 g/t au over 3.5 meters will be completed later this summer.
Benton is a Canadian based junior mining company with multiple joint ventures and a diversified property portfolio in Gold, Nickel, Copper, and Platinum group elements. The company currently has approximately $9 million in cash, owns 38.7 million shares and 19.1 million warrant in Coro Mining Corp (TSX.COP), holds 1.5 million shares in Marathon PGM Corp (TSX.MAR), holds 1.5 million shares in Puget Ventures (TSX-V.PVS), holds 815,000 Bell Copper Corp (TSX-V.BCU) and retains a 2% Net Smelter Royalty on the northern portion of the Marathon PGM deposit. The company is also in the process spinning out its 100% Bermuda property to it share holders into a new company to be named Coldwell Copper Corp.
Clinton Barr (P.Geo.), V.P. Exploration for Benton Resources Corp., is the qualified person responsible for this release.
On behalf of the Board of Directors of Benton Resources Corp.
“Stephen Stares”
Stephen Stares, President
THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.
Forward-looking statements in this release are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties.
For further information contact Stephen Stares @:
3250 Arthur St. West, RR #2
Thunder Bay, ON P7C 4V1
Phone (807)475-7474
Fax (807)475-7200
www.bentonresources.ca
Investor Relations
Clair Calvert: @204-799-2086
