Nova Minerals identifies ‘major’ new gold trend at Alaska project
Nova Minerals has recently unearthed a 516.61m wide gold intersection at the Korbel prospect – below the existing 2.5Moz resource.
Nova Minerals (ASX: NVA) has revealed it has found what appears to be a near-surface “major” new gold trend, extending the Korbel Main deposit by 340m in length and by 400m in width.
The company is now preparing a preliminary economic assessment to investigate the capital costs along with mining and treatment alternatives at Korbel Main.
The Korbel prospect is one of 15 identified deposits in the Estelle project in Alaska, which is located approximately 177km northwest of Anchorage, the US state’s major city.
The latest bunch of drilling results from the southeast extension of Korbel Main includes 174m at 0.6 grams per tonnes gold, including 61m at 0.9g/t, 24m at 1.0g/t, 21m at 1.2g/t and 3m at 4.2g/t.
Another hole assayed at 256m at 0.4g/t gold, with three higher grade sections.
The two holes returned 104 gram-meters (gm) and 102gm respectively.
The company said assays from four other holes are “imminent”.
In this part of Alaska, the gold is typically in bulk tonnage, low in grade but with high margins.
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.
More than 200 million ounces 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 one presentation.
Mineralised structure remains ‘wide open’
Nova chief executive officer Christopher Gerteisen said the southeast extension appears to be a “major new gold trend”.
This has increased the resource zone by 30% along strike — “a clear demonstration of the significant size and scale of the mineralised structure which still remains wide open”, he added.
“It is very gratifying to the see the extension of the mineralised system with holes consistently returning 100 gram-meter results, which all now converse within the Korbel Main deposit.”
Already a 3.3Moz resource
Nova said more than 16,000m of drill samples from 30 holes will be assayed during the current quarter.
A further resource upgrade is due in the June quarter.
During the December quarter, Nova drilled 32 holes at the Estelle project totalling about 17,000m.
It has already established a 3.3Moz gold resource at Korbel Blocks A and B supported by only the first 16 holes.