Athena Gold finds new anomalies at Laird Lake

Mr. Koby Kushner reports ATHENA UNCOVERS NEW TILL ANOMALIES AT LAIRD LAKE, MATERIALLY EXPANDS LAND PACKAGE IN ONTARIO'S RED LAKE GOLD CAMP Athena Gold Corp. has released the results from the 2025 summer till program completed at its flagship Laird Lake gold project, located in Ontario's prolific Red Lake gold district (see press releases dated April 17, 2025, and July 14, 2025). Results from the program have highlighted at least four distinct zones of gold anomalism, ranging up to approximately 3,000 metres in length, newly named Nemo, Bounty, Hugo and Chungus zones. Three of the new zones are not associated with any historical occurrences and represent new opportunities to make near-surface discoveries. On the back of these till results, Athena has further grown its land position by another 2,302 hectares, with the project now comprising a total of 7,457 hectares. "We are beyond thrilled with the results from our 2025 till program at Laird Lake, which have revealed four significant gold anomalies in Ontario's Red Lake gold district. The discovery of the Nemo, Hugo and Chungus zones, combined with the expansion of our land package to over 7,400 hectares, positions Athena to unlock substantial value in this prolific gold camp. With minimal overburden and road-accessible targets, we are well positioned to efficiently advance these discoveries toward our maiden drilling campaign this winter," said Koby Kushner, chief executive officer. "The new targets identified happen to occur in areas with very thin overburden. Additionally, we believe the till material sampled likely underwent minimal glacial displacement from surface mineralization near the new anomalies. This means that we should be able to ground truth these targets cheaply and quickly in order to finalize drill targets for our maiden winter drilling campaign," said Benjamin Kuzmich, vice-president of exploration. Summary Four discrete zones of gold anomalism, each ranging from approximately 200 to 3,000 metres long, have returned Au-Ag-As-Bi-W (gold-silver-arsenic-bismuth-tungsten) geochemical signatures characteristic of major deposits in the Red Lake district. Three of the zones, Nemo, Hugo and Chungus, represent new target areas, with no previously documented occurrences. The Bounty anomaly is coincident with areas of known gold showings, most notably, the 373 grams per tonne Au surface grab sample reported last year by Athena (see press release dated Dec. 4, 2024), and is proximal to the Balmer-Confederation unconformity that hosts several high-grade, narrow-vein deposits in the Red Lake gold camp. Regionally, the new geochemical anomalies appear proximal to northwest-trending structures associated with the Laird Lake fault system, which may represent an analogous structural environment to the LP fault system that hosts the nearby Great Bear deposit. The western anomalies, Nemo, Hugo and Chungus, appear more broad and less nuggety (that is, more disseminated), suggesting a different style of mineralization compared with the narrow high-grade targets at the Bounty zone. All four geochemical anomalies are easily accessible via road network, with minimal overburden providing ease of access and observation during prospecting. Athena has materially increased its Laird Lake project through map staking to 7,457 hectares from 5,155 hectares, with the project now spanning approximately 20 kilometres of prospective ground. Results from an additional field prospecting program are expected in the coming weeks, with the goal of ground-truthing these geochemical anomalies ahead of the planned maiden drill program in winter. QA/QC (quality assurance/quality control) Athena Gold completed a preliminary orientation till sampling survey that consisted of 1899 till samples collected on 100-metre spaced north-south lines and 100 m spaced east-west lines in the central portion of the property, with 200 m spaced north-south and 200 m spaced east-west lines in the western portion of the property. Samples were collected using Dutch style hand augers with a maximum 3.0-metre sampling depth possible. The sample depth ranged from zero to 250 centimetres with an average of 27 cm. Collected sample weight ranged from 0.28 kg to 2.16 kg with an average of 1.04 kg. OREAS 46 certified reference material (CRM) and duplicate field samples were inserted into the sequence at a 5-per-cent rate for each QA/QC sample type in the field. Postfield collection, samples were transported to Agat Labs Thunder Bay for preparation and analysis. All samples were dried to 60 degrees Celsius to reduce loss of volatile mercury and arsenic, sieved to negative 180 plus 63 micron and negative 63 micron fraction data subsets of 25 grams then underwent AR_ICP OES and ICP-MS digestion and analysis. Review of assay data shows both datasets returned high-quality, usable data, with results within three standard deviations of the certified values of Al (aluminum), Cu (copper), Fe (iron), Ni (nickel) and Pb (lead) for all analyses, and duplicate samples were within 10 per cent of each other. Glacial drift is proposed to be in the magnitude of zero m to 200 m toward south by southwest across the property based on the geological associations shown in the sample results compared with mapped lithologies. The technical information presented in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Benjamin Kuzmich, PGeo, vice-president of exploration for Athena Gold, and the qualified person for exploration at the Laird Lake project, as defined by National Instrument 43-101 -- Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. About Athena Gold Corp. Athena Gold is engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the acquisition of mineral property assets. Its objective is to locate and develop economic precious and base metal properties of merit and to conduct additional exploration drilling and studies on its projects across North America. Athena Gold's Laird Lake project is situated in the Red Lake gold district of Ontario, covering over 7,000 hectares along more than 10 kilometres of the Balmer-Confederation Assemblage contact, where recent surface sampling results returned up to 373 g/t Au. This underexplored area is road accessible, located about 10 km west of West Red Lake Gold's Madsen mine and 34 km northwest of Kinross Gold's Great Bear project. Meanwhile, its Excelsior Springs project is located in the prolific Walker Lane trend in Nevada, where it is currently under an earn-in option with Mammoth Minerals Ltd. (formerly, Firetail Resources Ltd.). Excelsior Springs spans over 2,500 hectares and covers at least three historic mines. Athena Gold also holds a 100-per-cent interest in its Oneman Lake Au-VMS (volcanogenic massive sulphide) project in Ontario. We seek Safe Harbor.