Nova Minerals firms up Alaska project as drilling confirms large gold system

Nova Minerals (ASX: NVA) has revealed its Estelle gold project is continuing to grow into a “very large” continuous gold system.

Drilling at the Korbel prospect — one of 15 identified deposits in the Estelle project — has identified further broad intervals. Mineralisation remains open at depth and along strike.

The Estelle gold project is located approximately 177km north-west of Anchorage, Alaska’s major city.

Nova says the latest continuity has been confirmed by eight diamond drilling holes.

Hole KBDH-12 intersected 429m at 0.6 grams per tonne gold from 3m down hole.

Intervals from this hole have been reported as 101m at 1.3g/t gold, including 82m at 1.5g/t. There are four higher grade gold intervals of: 30m at 2.4g/t, 3m at 7.7g/t, 6m at 4.7g/t and 3m at 8.2g/t.

Other holes returned 150m at 0.6g/t, 163m at 0.6% and 137m at 0.6g/t.

The company noted that south-east of Block B at Korbel continues to grow outside the current 2.5 million-ounce resource model, which was released in September last year.

The full inferred resource at Estelle stands at 181.29Mt at 0.43g/t gold for that contained 2.5Moz.

Known gold at both Block A and Block B has been extended by an additional 1,500m of strike.

Substantial thicknesses remain untested

Chief executive officer Christopher Gerteisen said drilling was continuing at Block A where the company hopes to identify similar potential to Block B, which is the anticipated starter pit at Korbel.

“The scale and dimensions of the near surface and continuous mineralisation at Korbel continue to impress,” he added.

This is particularly so with the high-grade pods now being identified outside the current resource model as the company increases the overall footprint.

Mr Gerteisen said substantial thicknesses of mineralisation remain open along strike and down dip.

This development comes ahead the release of an interim inferred resource upgrade at Block B.

Final resource for Korbel expected in December

A final resource from the Korbel prospect is planned for release in December, with feasibility and baseline environmental studies to begin.

Estelle is located near the eastern end of the Tintina gold belt that stretches westward from Alaska over the Canadian border and through most of the Yukon. It is about 2,000km long.

More than 200Moz of hard rock gold resources have been documented within the belt over the past decade. It contains “untold millions of ounces” of historic placer gold, Nova said in a recent presentation.

The gold is typically in bulk tonnage, low in grade, but with high margins.