Resource growth at Korbel Main gold deposit dominates Nova Minerals’ June quarter
A growth in global resources at the Korbel Main deposit within Nova Minerals’ (ASX: NVA) flagship Estelle project in Alaska has dominated the junior’s June quarterly performance.
Released in April, the upgrade took the project’s total inferred resource to 518 million tonnes at 0.3 grams per tonne gold for 4.7 million ounces based on a 0.15g/t cut-off grade.
It was described as a “snapshot in time” with mineralisation starting from surface and remaining “wide open” along strike and at depth.
Nova continued a diamond and step-out drilling program at Korbel Main following the upgrade, revealing an extensive high-grade feeder zone in the southeast portion of the deposit which remains wide open.
Diamond intercept highlights included 113m at 1g/t gold; 49m at 1.5g/t; 3m at 11.7g/t; 3m at 4.5g/t; and 3m at 12.3g/t.
The company also drilled the northwest portion of Korbel, with a view to further boosting the existing resource in size and confidence.
Scoping study
While a scoping study for Korbel Main has been mostly completed from a technical perspective, Nova made a decision to postpone the release date in order to include materially-significant results from ongoing drilling.
The results will be added to information on operating and capital expenditure, process and metallurgical testing as well as pit optimisation.
While concurrently running test work to feed into the study, the company has commissioned an on-site preparation laboratory at Estelle allowing it to crush and split samples before they are sent for assay.
Managed by independent contractors, the lab is expected to improve the turnaround time for results and reduce expenses moving forward.
Snow Lake lithium resources
In March, emerging lithium chemicals company Snow Lake Resources (in which Nova has a 74% stake) announced it would launch a $31 million initial public offering to advance the Thompson Brothers project in Canada.
In June, Snow Lake released an indicated resource estimate for the project of 9.08Mt at 1% lithium oxide (using a 0.3% cut-off grade) and an inferred estimate of 1.97Mt at 0.98% lithium oxide).
The resources were calculated across less than 5% of the project area.
Nova said Snow Lake had commenced a preliminary economic assessment for Thompson Brothers, representing the next step in the move from exploration towards the start of commercial operations.