The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Up to 114 g/t gold in outcrop samples from target near Korbel North of 60 Mining News – August 28, 2020
High-grade gold was discovered while sampling outcrop about 1,200 meters southwest of the 2.5-million-ounce Korbel resource currently being drilled at Estelle.
Nova Minerals Ltd. Aug. 26 reported high-grade gold samples collected from an outcrop at Cathedral, an exploration target about 1,200 meters southwest of Korbel Block B on the company's Estelle gold project in Alaska.
Reconnaissance exploration at Cathedral target included sampling of quartz-arsenopyrite veining outcropping within the target area. Nova said the spectacular high-grade gold values of 2.97 to 114 grams per metric ton gold from this sampling elevates Cathedral to one of Australia-based explorer's highest priority drill targets for the 2021 program at Estelle.
"These spectacular grades obtained from Cathedral alongside the encouraging drill results from the resource drilling at Korbel's Blocks A and B plus other known targets within Estelle, such as RPM and Shoeshine, are leading the company to continue to advance plans to unlock a district containing multiple large-scale gold deposits," said Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen.
The company said this sampling also confirms the strong correlation between gold and arsenopyrite at Estelle, which adds further confidence to a sensor-based ore-sorting scoping study already underway.
The objective of this study is to confirm ore-sorting economic potential and define a predictive algorithm. If positive results are obtained, then a second phase of ore-sorting will be undertaken to confirm economic benefits to a feasibility confidence level using larger sample sizes and multiple zones. All data and findings will be used in future feasibility work.
"We are now 'fast tracking' the ore-sorting scoping study, as we see a clear correlation between arsenopyrite bearing veins and high-grade gold values," said Gerteisen. "We are encouraged that we will be able to use ore-sorting techniques to separate out higher-grade material, thereby decreasing the capex (capital expenditures) and opex (operating expenditures) of the future operations."
"In time, we expect to define multiple new shallow gold resources that will further support our goal of building a centralized mill and heap leach facility as we continue on our path towards gold production," the Nova Minerals CEO added.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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