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Including 175m of 1.3 g/t gold at emerging Estelle deposit North of 60 Mining News – October 22, 2021
Nova Minerals cut strong gold mineralization in five of the six holes completed during its first round of drilling at RPM, an emerging gold deposit toward the south end of Estelle.
Nova Minerals Ltd. Oct. 18 reported two additional long intercepts of strong gold mineralization from this year's drilling at the RPM North target on the Australian company's Estelle gold project in Alaska.
Situated about 16 miles (25 kilometers) south of Korbel, where Nova has outlined 4.7 million ounces of gold in 518 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.3 grams per metric ton gold, RPM is emerging as the second large gold deposit at Estelle.
One hole drilled by a previous operator in 2012 cut 177.4 meters averaging 0.79 g/t gold from a depth of 4.3 meters at RPM, including 50.2 meters of 1.75 g/t gold.
Nova completed six holes during its first drill program at RPM North, five of which cut wide widths of strong gold mineralization.
Highlights from three holes reported by the company last week include:
• 37 meters averaging 1 g/t gold from a depth of 224 meters in hole RPM-001, including a six-meter subsection averaging 4.2 g/t gold.
• 128 meters averaging 1 g/t gold from 31 meters in RPM-002, including a 42-meter subsection averaging 1.5 g/t gold.
• 373 meters averaging 3.8 g/t gold from a depth of seven meters in RPM-005, including a 132-meter subsection averaging 10.1 g/t gold from 89 meters.
The longer intercepts in RPM-005 included several bonanza grade intervals, including 2.4 meters averaging 50.3 g/t gold from 161 meters and three meters averaging 97.8 g/t gold from 169 meters.
Highlights from the latest batch of results include:
• 259 meters averaging 0.5 g/t gold from surface in RPM-004, including a 78-meter subsection averaging 0.8 g/t gold from 287 meters.
• 175 meters averaging 1.3 g/t gold from surface in RPM-005, including a 101-meter subsection averaging 2 g/t gold from 34 meters.
"These latest results at RPM North further confirm the discovery of another massive intrusive related gold system within the Estelle gold project," said Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen. "Nova now has two, Korbel and RPM, and we believe there are many more to come as we continue to unlock the district."
RPM North is one of two zones identified so far at RPM. The other, RPM South, is located about 600 meters to the southeast. Rock samples collected by Nova geologists from this zone that was previously referred to as RPM-2 returned assays with as much as 103 g/t gold.
Nova says the gold mineralization at RPM is hosted along the intrusive contact with hornfels sediment country rocks.
"This contact zone appears be an ideal structural corridor where the important litho geochemical reactions are focused, enabling high-grade gold deposition," said Gerteisen. "It is encouraging that we can follow these intrusive contacts in mapping for quite a distance along strike at RPM North and at the RPM South zone."
The Nova Minerals CEO says the company is confident that it can hit the strong gold mineralization cut in holes RPM-005 and 006 with a series of 200-meter step-out holes to the west.
"We are now designing the next phase of drilling programs to commence as soon as possible in 2022, where we plan to have at least two drill rigs at RPM to follow up the RPM North Zone and begin to target what looks to be the much larger RPM South Zone which may converge at depth," he said.
In the meantime, Nova continues to carry out aggressive infill and extension drilling at the Korbel deposit. Assay results are pending for over 10,000 meters of drilling at Korbel Main.
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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