Marathon Resumes Drilling at Valentine Lake

TORONTO, June 4 /CNW/ - Marathon PGM Corporation (MAR-TSX) ("Marathon") announced the start of the recently announced 8,000 meter drill program for the Valentine Lake Gold Project ("Valentine Lake"), located within Central Newfoundland. The drilling will focus on in-filling gaps at the Leprechaun Gold Deposit, exploring on-strike potential to the northeast of the deposit and testing the Valentine East prospect, on strike 13 km to the northeast.

"Our initial drilling campaign was a success and we're building on that. We're doing additional drilling in the Leprechaun area and developing other gold targets on the property," commented Phillip Walford, P.Geo., President and CEO.

Highlights:.

    
    -   an 8,000 meter drilling campaign will focus on in-filling of drilling
        gaps and testing on-strike resource development potential
    -   field work will focus on the development of other potential deposits
    -   a program of relogging and sampling historical drill core is under
        way
    

Leprechaun Gold Deposit

Marathon's initial drilling campaign identified several high grade lenses of visible gold hosted by quartz-tourmaline stockwork veins within a (greater than) 200 meter wide envelope of lower grade mineralization that extends into both the hanging wall and the footwall near an intrusive/sediment contact. The high-grade lenses strike northeast with the best mineralized intersections grading 38.32 g/t gold over 9.0 meters true width and 6.79 g/t gold over 25 meters true width in holes VL10-165 and VL10-160, respectively. The hanging wall zones and the previously identified high grade areas were not drilled during the winter program because of poor ice conditions but they will be evaluated by the spring drilling from a barge. Mineralization at Leprechaun starts near surface and is configured favourably for open pit mining, with mineralized intersections grading 4.43 g/t gold over 20.8 meters true width and 2.78 g/t gold over 22 meters true width at depths of less than 50 meters below surface.

Leprechaun Northeast Extension

The high grade lenses and the overall mineralized envelope at Leprechaun occur within a 2 km long deformation zone that strikes northeast towards the Sprite prospect. This structure was drill tested by previous operators with very positive results including 7.92 g/t gold over 11.22 meters in VL04-98 and at the Sprite prospect, 12.78 g/t Au over 3.0 meters in VL-27.

The style of mineralization identified in drill holes along the structure is similar to that at Leprechaun. This finding indicates that a similar exploration method can be applied along strike. Marathon's plan is to conduct outcrop stripping, trenching and a geophysical IP survey at strategic locations along the structure. The results will be used in conjunction with historic drilling to provide targets for drilling later in the summer.

Valentine East

Marathon believes there is potential to develop a second resource on the property with the Valentine East target. If warranted following the completion of the program, Marathon will develop a second resource estimate for the Valentine Lake Gold Project by combining historical drilling with this program's planned infill and step out holes. Historical drilling at the Valentine East prospect intersected gold mineralization in two parallel zones within an area approximately 800 meters long by 300 meters wide. The first and best known zone was intersected by 14 drill holes along a 720 meter strike length with best assays including 30.9 g/t gold over 1 meter and thicker zones of lower grade material with 1.51 g/t gold over 30.9 meters (8.6 meters not assayed) including 3.18 g/t gold over 9.6 meters. The second zone occurs at surface and was tested by a single drill hole that intersected 1.93 g/t gold over 1 meter and 4.78 g/t gold over 1.2 meter at a depth of less than 20 meters below surface followed by three holes in August 2009 where values of 1.06 g/t gold over 2 meters were encountered. The area between the two parallel zones will be examined as part of the IP geophysical survey.

Planned work at Valentine East includes an IP geophysical survey, re-sampling historic core and geological mapping of trenches to refine targets for subsequent drilling. The goal is to define a second open pit resource on the Valentine Lake property.

All of the samples were sent to Eastern Analytical Laboratory Ltd. in Springdale, Newfoundland. Samples were assayed using lead collection fire assay with AA (atomic absorption) finish. Results from fire assay are used for drill hole planning only. Assay results for the planned updated resource estimate will be determined by a metallic screening process currently in progress.

Dave Good, Ph.D., P.Geo., VP of Exploration is Marathon's Qualified Person in compliance with National Instrument 43-101 with respect to this release. Dr. Good has reviewed the contents for accuracy and has approved this press release on behalf of Marathon.

About Marathon PGM Corporation:

Marathon is actively developing resources in the immediate vicinity of the Marathon Deposit to expand the 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 the development of additional nearby resources. Marathon's optimized P+P reserve of approximately 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 approximately 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.

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, 2009.

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., Mobile: [phone], Direct: [phone], [email protected]