Nova Minerals announces high-grade gold finds at Estelle project in Alaska

An extensive exploration mapping and sampling program undertaken in 2023 by Nova Minerals (ASX: NVA) continues to return promise in Alaska.

Head of exploration Hans Hoffman’s marathon ground exploration campaign covered the entire Estelle gold project located in the prolific Tintina Gold Belt in Alaska.

It included more than 45 traverses covering 100-line kilometres, the acquisition of 674 soil samples, 446 rock samples and 21 stream sediment samples.

The initial indications of new areas of mineralisation immediately led Nova to acquire additional mining claims, expanding the project area to over 500 sq km.

Subsequent studies of the information gathered in that program continue to uncover significant new opportunities at Nova’s flagship project with gold and antimony mineralisation finds already made at the Discovery, Muddy Creek, Stibium, Styx, Train, Trumpet and Wombat prospects.

Now Nova has announced further discoveries at the Tomahawk and Trundle prospects in the central portion of the Estelle site.

Continuity of mineralisation

Mr Hoffman said assay results obtained at Tomahawk and Trundle in the project-wide 2023 campaign have shown the continuity of mineralisation across the new claim block with gold grades up to 20.9 grams per tonne.

“Mineralisation identified at Trundle and Tomahawk contributes to the developing 35km-long Estelle gold trend,” he said.

“Chasing the large veins at Wombat led us straight north to Tomahawk and the iron-stained intrusive rocks at Trundle were an obvious target just west of Wombat.”

“With a long list of prospects from Korbel in the north to RPM in the south, these new results warrant follow-up reconnaissance mapping and sampling.”

A total of 43 rocks and 35 soils were collected at Trundle and Tomahawk that showed anomalous gold, copper and antimony mineralisation including six rocks which graded at 5g/t gold with a high of 20.9g/t.

‘Only scratched the surface’

Chief executive officer Christopher Gerteisen said the assay results now confirm Trundle and Tomahawk as highly mineralised prospects for gold, copper, silver and antimony.

“These prospects have always been an area of interest for us, exhibiting all the indicative features of mineralisation, including striking surface colour, alteration and vein density anomalies, which is now confirmed through sample analysis,” he said.

“This shows us the value of our systematic surface exploration programs which continue across the Estelle project.”

“The claim block is 513 sq km and we have only scratched the surface,” he added.

“As we proceed into 2024 and beyond with further exploration work, we expect additional prospects to be discovered with both gold and critical and strategic element potential.”

Mr Gerteisen said Nova’s aggressive ongoing exploration approach has to date identified over 20 known mineralised prospects.

“This provides the company with decades of project longevity [and] a pipeline of potential resources for future production scenarios.”

“As we move forward, we will prioritise this prospect portfolio for advancement towards resource definition.”

Wombat another success

The Tomahawk and Trundle finds follow on from Nova’s late January vein-hosted Wombat discovery in the central portion of the new claims tenements at Estelle.

Field observations and assay results from exploration surface samples confirmed the presence of a new gold anomaly with up to a 1km long strike length at the Wombat prospect area.

Surface sampling traverses unearthed massive – up to 4m thick – gold-bearing quartz veins with best results up to 24.2g/t gold.

Copper was associated with several samples in the form of bornite and chalcopyrite with five samples grading 6.1%, 3.0%, 2.3%, 1.3% and 1.2% copper.