TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - May 4, 2011) - Atacama Pacific Gold Corporation (News - Market indicators) ("Atacama Pacific") announces drill assay results from a further fourteen holes drilled on its 100%-owned Cerro Maricunga Gold Project located in Chile's Region III, 170 kilometres northeast of the city of Copiapo and 20 kilometres south of Kinross Gold's La Coipa mine. 

The reported drill holes mainly targeted the Phoenix and Lynx zones (see attached map) confirming that the two zones join to form a single 1.5 kilometre long north-westerly trending zone of oxide-associated gold mineralization with widths of up to 400 metres and traced to depths of up to 550 metres. The entire mineralized volcanic breccia system, which includes the southern Crux Zone, has been outlined by drilling and trenching over a strike length of 2.5 kilometres. Highlights from the fourteen drill holes include:

• 206 metres grading 0.71 grams per tonne gold ("g/t Au") including 56 metres grading 1.28 g/t Au from drill hole CMD-057;

• 118 metres grading 0.80 g/t Au including 2.60 g/t Au over 14 metres (CMR-060);

•  44 metres grading 1.48 g/t Au including 2.83 g/t Au over 16 metres (CMR-061);

• 172 metres grading 0.52 g/t Au including 0.98 g/t Au over 24 metres (CMD-063);

•  58 metres grading 1.24 g/t Au including 1.74 g/t Au over 18 metres (CMD-065); and,

• 124 metres grading 1.21 g/t Au including 2.88 g/t Au over 18 metres (CMR-077).

The Cerro Maricunga Phase II drill program finished, as planned, on April 24, 2011. Eighty two drill holes were completed for a total of 31,240 metres drilled exceeding the 25,000 metres budgeted. All drill assays should be available by the end of May and it is anticipated that the first Cerro Maricunga NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate will be released during the third quarter 2011. Phase III exploration activities are scheduled to commence in September 2011.

"We are very pleased with the continued positive drill results from our Phase II exploration program", stated Carl B. Hansen, President and CEO of Atacama Pacific. "The recent results further demonstrate that Cerro Maricunga has the potential to host significant volumes of oxide-associated gold mineralization. With the field exploration activities drawing to a close, efforts are being focused on the completion of a resource estimate which will form the basis of preliminary economics studies to be completed during 2012."

Phoenix Zone Drilling

Results from infill drilling in the Phoenix Zone were largely as anticipated with the north-western portion of the zone returned long intervals of higher gold grades, including 118 metres grading 0.80 g/t Au (CMR-060) and 124 metres grading 1.21 g/t Au (CMR-077). Drilling along the south-eastern margins of the Phoenix Zone returned long intervals of 0.3 to 0.4 g/t Au in line with previous results. Drill hole CMR-067 did not reach the zone and returned no significant intervals of gold mineralization.

Lynx Zone Drilling

Drill holes CMR-061 (section 2050) and CMD-065 (section 2000), which returned 44 metres grading 1.48 g/t Au and 58 metres grading 1.24 g/t Au respectively, extended the Lynx Zone to the southeast towards the Phoenix Zone. CMR-069, which returned broad intervals of gold mineralization (186 metres grading 0.38 g/t Au at a 0.2 g/t cut-off grade), was drilled parallel the mineralized trend, establishing continuity between to the two major gold zones at Cerro Maricunga.

A series of four holes have been drilled between sections 1800 and 2100 to defined the south-western contact of the mineralization and further define the nature of mineralization between the Lynx and Phoenix zones. 

About Atacama Pacific Gold Corporation

Atacama Pacific's business is the acquisition, exploration and development of precious metals resource properties in Chile. Atacama Pacific's principal mineral property is the Cerro Maricunga oxide-associated, breccia-hosted gold project, located in Region III, 140 kilometres by road northeast of the city of Copiapo. Atacama Pacific's goal is to become a producer of gold through the exploration and development of the Cerro Maricunga Gold Project. Atacama Pacific also owns four other mineral properties within close proximity to the Cerro Maricunga Project and a fifth property in Chile's Region I.

Quality Control / Quality Assurance Program

RC chips and Diamond drill core from Atacama Pacific's drilling campaign were collected at the drill under the direct supervision of Atacama Pacific staff. Both the RC samples and drill core were appropriately tagged, secured and transported to the Atacama Pacific exploration camp and then to Atacama Pacific's secure sample, logging and storage site in Copiapo, Chile. Each RC chip sample was split to obtain a 15 kilogram sample for assay purposes. Representative chips were collected from each sample for logging purposes. Drill core was logged, marked at two metre intervals for sampling and split longitudinally with a Diamond drill saw. One half of the core was bagged and sample tags attached and the second half of the core was returned to the core boxes. All samples were appropriately tagged and sent to Asesoria Minera Geoanalitica Ltda.'s sample preparation facility in Copiapo. Resulting pulps were then returned to Atacama Pacific's storage facility in order to insert QA-QC pulps and re-numbering (bar codes) before being transported by Atacama Pacific personnel to Activation Laboratorios Ltda. ("Actlabs") in Coquimbo, Chile for analysis.

Samples were analyzed for gold using fire assay techniques using two assay/ton samples (about 50 gram) with an atomic absorption spectrographic finish for a sensitivity of 5 ppb (.005 ppm) gold. Approximately 10% of the samples submitted to Actlabs comprise field rejects for RC chip samples, coarse rejects for drill core, pulp duplicates, standard and blank samples to ensure laboratory quality control procedures.

National Instrument 43-101 Compliance

Under National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") of the Canadian Securities Administrators, the qualified person for the Cerro Maricunga Gold Project is Michael Easdon, a resident of Santiago, Chile and a Professional Geologist registered with the State of Oregon, USA. Mr. Easdon, an independent qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, has reviewed and verified the contents of this press release.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This release contains forward-looking statements, including predictions, projections and forecasts. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to completion of economic assessments, exploration results, the success of exploration activities generally, mine development prospects, and future gold production Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "planning", "expects" or "does not expect", "continues", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "potential", "anticipates", "does not anticipate", or "belief", or describes a "goal", or variation of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, future events, conditions, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, prediction, projection, forecast, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the results of due diligence activities, the interpretation and actual results of current exploration activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; future prices of gold; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing or in the completion of exploration, as well as those factors disclosed in Atacama Pacific's publicly filed documents. Although Atacama Pacific has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

To view the "Surface Drill Plan" map included with this release, please visit the following link:

http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/drillplanmap.pdf