Mining

Nova Minerals identifies high-grade gold domains at Korbel Main target within Estelle gold project

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By Imelda Cotton - 
Nova Minerals Korbel Main drilling gold extension
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New results from drilling at Nova Minerals’ (ASX: NVA) Korbel Main deposit within the company’s flagship Estelle project in Alaska’s Tintina gold belt have confirmed a series of high-grade gold domains which remain open along strike.

Focused exploration on the Pad 6 target of Korbel continues in the high-grade zone to the south-east and potentially expands south-west.

Best diamond drill hole intercepts reported include 420 metres at 0.4 grams per tonne gold from 27m; 341m at 0.5g/t from 27m; 174m at 0.6g/t from 157m; and 147m at 0.6g/t from 218m.

Other assays were 21m at 1.5g/t gold from 255m; 14m at 1.1g/t from 305m; 549m at 0.3g/t from 3m; and 339m at 0.4g/t from 3m.

Mineralised domains

The new discoveries add to a number of already-defined mineralised domains which will be incorporated into an optimised pit model during the economic assessment phase of the project.

Nova said exploration drilling at Korbel would continue unabated, with over 25,000m completed to date and up to 80,000m planned for 2021.

A rig would be positioned at Pad 6 to test the newly defined south-east extension which is contiguous to the same higher-grade mineralised zone throughout the deposit.

Project potential

Nova chief executive officer Christopher Gerteisen was pleased with continued potential of the Estelle project.

“The mineralisation within the Korbel Main footprint is particularly encouraging as drilling has demonstrated several well-defined mineralised domains which we will [use] through the economic assessment,” he said.

“[We have] 15,000m of drill sample results due to come in over the short term [and] we look forward to updating our resource in 2021.”

He said the company was in an ideal position to bring Korbel Main to production while unlocking the Estelle gold district.

“By implementing our dual exploration and development strategy, we will seek to maximise our ability to create value for shareholders through both resource growth and project development,” he said.

Continued strong results

Today’s good news follows continued strong results from drilling at the Korbel prospect, which commenced earlier this year and is expected to yield a final resource estimate by year end.

Last month, Nova expanded the footprint at Korbel after confirming a wide zone of continuous mineralisation south-east of the current 3.3 million ounce resource.

The company has previously said that Estelle was growing into a very large continuous gold system after drilling at Korbel identified multiple broad intervals which remain open at depth and along strike.