Marathon Announces Resource Expansion Drilling at Geordie Lake and Valentine
Lake

TORONTO , Feb. 1 /CNW/ - Marathon PGM Corporation ("Marathon" or "the Company", MAR-TSX) announced today that resource expansion drilling campaigns are in progress at the Geordie Lake PGM-Cu ("Geordie Lake") deposit, located 14 km NW of Marathon, Ontario and at the Valentine Lake Gold Project (" Valentine Lake ") in Central Newfoundland.

Highlights

    
    -  Geordie Lake drilling consists of a 23 hole program to improve
       classifications and expand the tonnage and grade of the current
       resource
    -  Drilling at Valentine Lake consists of a 40 hole program to focus on
       the upper 150 m of the Leprechaun deposit to evaluate the open pit
       potential
    

"The Marathon Project remains our highest priority. Our full time corporate focus is to examine financing options for the Marathon Project while the operational group's efforts continue on advancing Marathon's permitting. The resource expansion mandate of both Geordie Lake and Valentine Lake rests with our exploration and development geologists," said Phillip Walford , Marathon's President and CEO. "We have been very careful to stage the timing of examining Marathon's financing options and permitting while continuing resource expansion - which remains an important part of the Company's growth."

Geordie Lake Deposit

The Geordie Lake drill plan has been designed to improve the classification, grade and tonnage of the previously defined resource. Subsequent to this drilling, Marathon will update the in-pit resource estimate for the Geordie Lake deposit, which is located 14 km west of the Marathon Project. Additional work is required to determine how the Geordie Lake deposit will best fit with the Marathon Project.

To date a total of 6 holes have been completed and assays are pending on the first 3 holes. The program of 23 holes is designed to expand and delineate an area 800 m long containing copper grades above 0.5% with PGM grades above 1 g/t. The drilling will concentrate on the top 150 m of the deposit. The Geordie Lake deposit has a similar geometry to the nearby Marathon deposit, which makes it amenable for open pit mining.

In July of 2008, Marathon announced an updated measured and indicated mineral resource of 25.99 million tonnes grading 0.35 % Cu, 0.55 g/t Pd, 0.03 g/t Pt, 0.05 g/t Au, and 2.35 g/t Ag, and containing 195.7 million lbs of Cu, 456,800 ounces of Pd, 28,400 ounces of Pt, 45,800 ounces of Au, and 1.94 million ounces of Ag. The resource estimate of the Geordie Lake Property was performed by independent geological consultants and Qualified Persons, G.H. Giroux, P.Eng of Giroux Consultants of Vancouver , British Columbia ("Giroux") and Alan Stanley , P.Geo, and presented in the NI 43-101 Geordie Lake Technical Report press release dated July 8, 2008 .

Valentine Lake Gold Project

The Valentine Lake Property hosts the Leprechaun Gold Deposit, which has a NI 43-101 compliant underground inferred mineral resource of 1,314,780 tonnes grading 10.50 grams per tonne (g/t) gold using a 5 g/t gold minimum cut-off and a 3 metre minimum width for a total estimated mineral resource of 443,000 ounces of gold. Cutting individual assays to 58 g/t gold, the average grade is 8.51 g/t gold, for a total estimated mineral resource of 359,000 ounces of gold at the cut grade. The Deposit is open at depth. The resource estimate of the Valentine Lake Property was performed by Larry Pilgrim , P. Geo., Qualified Person, and presented in the NI 43-101 Valentine Lake Technical Report dated January 12, 2005 , when the closing spot price for gold was US$ 425.50 per ounce.

The Valentine Lake Project is over 30 km long and has anomalous gold values in rock and soils, reflecting widespread gold mineralization. Preliminary investigation of these areas has produced favourable drilling results that require follow up. Marathon believes that the setting of Valentine Lake is geologically analogous to other gold camps.

The drill program is testing 400 m of strike that has been drilled to a depth of 150 m and is open in all directions. Adding to the expansion potential is the fact that there are numerous parallel zones of mineralization in the hanging wall and the mineralized assemblage is 200 m wide. Drilling will be focused on the area updip from the current underground gold resource with 3,700 metres planned over 40 holes to evaluate the potential for developing an open pit resource. The upper 100 metres of the deposit has not been sufficiently tested. The Valentine Lake Gold Project is an option and joint venture agreement between Marathon and Mountain Lake Resources Inc (TSX.v:MOA"). Please click http://www.marathonpgm.com/news/2009/231209.pdf to review the OJVA press release.

Drilling is currently underway at Valentine Lake and a second drill is due to arrive on the project later this week which will enable the drill program to be completed in approximately one month. The plan for the drilling is to test the plane of the mineralized horizon at 30 to 40 metre spaced intervals on each 25 metre spaced section and the pattern of the drill holes will be offset by 15 to 20 metres from section to section producing a diamond pattern on the horizon. This is the most cost efficient method to evaluate the resource.

Mr. Gary Woods , P.Geo., President and CEO of Mountain Lake, is the Company's Qualified Person on the Valentine Lake project and has reviewed and verified the contents of this news release.

All exploration work is being performed under the guidance and supervision of Phillip C. Walford, Marathon's President and Chief Executive Officer, a professional geologist and Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Walford has approved the contents of this press release.

About Marathon PGM Corporation:

Marathon is exploring resource development potential in the immediate vicinity of the Marathon deposit to expand mine life of the planned large tonnage, open pit mining operation. The Marathon deposit is one of the largest PGM-Cu reserves in Canada and is expected to grow with development of additional nearby resources. Marathon's optimized P+P reserve of 91.45 million tonnes grading 0.832 g/t Pd, 0.237 g/t Pt, 0.085 g/t Au, 0.247% Cu and 1.44 g/t Ag, contains 2.44 million ounces of Pd, 696,000 ounces of Pt, 251,000 ounces of Au, 497 million lbs of Cu and 4.23 million ounces of Ag. Marathon also has development and exploration stage properties in southeastern Manitoba and western Newfoundland, respectively. Marathon's management plans to build on its experience through the advancement of its properties and by examining other strategic opportunities.

About Mountain Lake Resources Inc:

Mountain Lake Resources Inc. (TSX-V: MOA) is a diversified junior exploration company, whose corporate strategy is to build shareholder value through the exploration and development of economically viable mineral properties. Mountain Lake's current projects include: a 30% interest in the Valentine Lake gold property (Newfoundland) with an option to acquire the remaining 70% interest from Richmont Mines Inc. and a subsequent sub-option and joint venture agreement whereby Marathon PGM Corp. can earn a 50% interest in the property; a 100% interest in the Bobby's Pond base metals property (Newfoundland) with an option to acquire initially a 51% interest in the surrounding claims from Cornerstone Resources; an option to earn a 100% interest in the Little River gold exploration property (Newfoundland); and a 2,350,000 share (~6.5%) stake in Etruscan Diamonds Limited, an alluvial diamond project ( South Africa ).

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

Except for statements of historical fact relating to Marathon, certain information contained herein constitutes "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements include statements that are predictive in nature, depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or include words such as "expects", "anticipates", "plans", "believes", "considers", "intends", "targets", or negative versions thereof and other similar expressions, or future or conditional verbs such as "may", "will", "should", "would" and "could". We provide forward-looking statements for the purpose of conveying information about our current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. By its nature, this information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to those identified and reported in Management's Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2008 .

Other than as specifically required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, whether as a result of new information, future events or results otherwise.

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For further information: David Leng, P.Geo., Tel: [phone], Fax: [phone], [email protected]