The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News – September 13, 2019
A drill tests Oxide Korbel during Nova Minerals' 2019 program at the Estelle gold project in Alaska.
Nova Minerals Ltd. Sept. 11 reported that it has outlined 2.5 million ounces of gold in a maiden inferred resource estimate for the Oxide Korbel deposit on the company's Estelle project in Alaska.
Previously known as Oxide Ridge, the Oxide Korbel is located at the northern end of the roughly 18-mile-long Estelle property.
The Oxide Korbel discovery hole, drilled by Millrock Resources Inc. in 2011, cut 450.7 meters averaging 0.38 grams per metric ton gold in an area Nova now refers to as Oxide Korbel Resource Block A.
SE12-04, drilled about 450 meters southeast of the discovery hole in area now referred to Oxide Korbel Block B, cut 180.1 meters of 0.53 g/t gold starting from a depth of 1.8 meters.
This year, Nova Minerals drilled 18 holes in fences across Oxide Korbel Block A and B. This drilling outlined these resource blocks for more than 1,000 meters along strike and at an average width of 500 meters. The company said the gold mineralization generally starts at surface and has consistently been traced to a depth of 150 meters and deeper in some holes.
The results from the drilling at Oxide Korbel were used to calculate an inaugural Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant inferred resource.
At a cut-off of 0.18 g/t gold, Oxide Korbel hosts 181.3 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.43 g/t (2.5 million oz) gold.
These grades are similar to the reserves at Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine near Fairbanks, Alaska – 267.6 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 0.4 g/t (3 million oz) gold.
"The Oxide Korbel deposit is a textbook example of a potentially bulk mineable, large scale, near surface, low strip intrusion-related gold system (IRGS) mirroring that of Kinross' Fort Knox gold and Victoria Gold's Dublin Gulch Eagle Gold Mine systems," said Nova Minerals Managing Director Avi Kimelman.
The company said the ability to quickly establish a 2.5-million-oz resource at Oxide Korbel speaks to the potential of the larger Estelle property.
Nova Minerals plans to aggressively test this potential moving forward. The initial focus of the company's planned multi-drill program is on increasing the drill density of the maiden resource and step-out drilling to expand the deposit.
Two other untested Oxide Korbel targets – blocks C and D – lie to the west of the newly established resource area.
"Our aggressive drilling efforts will continue upon receiving permits and approvals, with exploration planning around the existing resource already underway," said Kimelman. "We intend to use multiple diamond drill rigs to define the footprint of Oxide Korbel deposit, expand the resource and test additional gold targets on the Estelle property."
In addition to Oxide, the Estelle property includes numerous exploration targets. Shoeshine, an area about 10 miles to the south that covers the Mount Estelle, Train and Shoeshine prospects; and RPM, which covers the Revelation and RPM prospects at the south end of the property, are areas the company plans to drill.
"This is just a start and we have literally only scratched the surface," Kimelman said.
–SHANE LASLEY
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