Nova has drills targeting gold at Estelle

Nova Minerals Ltd. June 21 announced the start of drilling at the Oxide gold prospect on the Estelle project about 100 miles northwest of Anchorage, Alaska.

The Australia-based explorer plans to complete 5,000 meters of drilling in two phases. The second phase will be decided by the 2,500-meter phase-1 results.

"It's great to be back drilling at the district-scale Estelle gold project," said Nova Minerals Managing Director Avi Kimelman. "A great deal of work has gone into being well prepared and ensuring we deliver the most cost effective and efficient exploration campaign over the next few weeks at Estelle. It has been an outstanding effort by the team."

Last year, Fairbanks, Alaska-based Pacific Rim Geological Consulting carried out an extensive mapping campaign across the Oxide prospect area of the Estelle property. This work, conducted for Nova, demonstrated that higher gold values are associated with bismuth, telluride and arsenopyrite mineral phases, and this mineralogy is hosted by sheeted quartz veins containing narrow alteration selvages.

These geological observations fit the intrusive-related gold system model. Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox mine near Fairbanks and Victoria Gold Corp.'s Dublin Gulch (Eagle Gold Mine) project in the Yukon host similar intrusion related gold systems within the Tintina Gold Belt.

Pacific Rim Geological Consulting's Tom Bundtzen identified two high-quality gold targets at Oxide – Oxide North and Oxide South.

The two targets are defined by alteration envelopes measuring 1,300 to 1,600 meters along strike and are roughly 575 meters wide.

A group of chip samples taken by Bundtzen from the alteration envelopes at Oxide North and South contain approximately 1 percent arsenopyrite mineralization with up to 1.04 grams per metric ton gold, averaging 0.183 g/t gold.

Millrock Resource Inc. cut long sections of gold mineralization at Oxide in 2011 and 2012.

SE11-01, the Oxide discovery hole, cut 450.7 meters averaging 0.38 grams per metric ton gold.

SE12-04, drilled to the southeast of the discovery, cut 41.5 meters averaging 1.1 g/t gold, indicating the drilling was vectoring toward higher gold grades as it approached a strong geophysical anomaly further southeast.

Nova is currently carrying out an induced polarization (IP) geophysical survey ahead of drilling at Oxide.

This work has already turned up anomalies, some associated with gold mineralization encountered by drilling completed by Millrock.

In addition to the geophysics and drilling, Nova plans to begin surface sampling and mapping at RPM and Shoeshine, two prospects at the southern end of the Estelle property, beginning in July.

"With the IP survey works ongoing, drilling now commenced, and sampling and mapping at RPM and Shoeshine to commence in July, the Nova Minerals team looks forward to updating shareholders on our progress with what is turning out to be an exciting and much larger project than we had first envisaged," said Kimelman.

–SHANE LASLEY