The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Starts with step outs from high-grade zone drilled last year North of 60 Mining News – June 17, 2022
Drillers are excited to begin the first 2022 hole at the RPM gold deposit in Alaska. This first hole is just west of RPM-005, a 2021 hole that cut 132 meters averaging 10.5 g/t gold.
Click on image for larger RPM 2022 drill map.
Nova Minerals Ltd. June 16 announced the start of the 2022 drill program at the high-grade RPM gold deposit on the Australia-based company's Estelle project in Alaska.
Based on one hole drilled in 2012 and six completed by Nova last year, RPM North hosts 23.1 million metric tons of JORC-compliant inferred resource averaging 2 grams per metric ton (1.5 million oz) gold.
Nova plans to drill more than 40 holes focused on expanding and upgrading this resource.
This drilling starts with holes near RPM-005, which cut an incredible 132 meters averaging 10.5 g/t gold. What is exciting for Nova is this is the westernmost hole drilled at RPM North and a magnetic anomaly associated with the highest-grade zone in RPM-005 extends for roughly another 1,000 meters to the west.
The top priority targets for this year's program at RPM are testing the area immediately surrounding RPM-005, as well as a fan of six holes at RPM South.
Rock samples collected by Nova geologists from RPM South, which lies about 600 meters southeast of RPM-005, returned assays with as much as 103 g/t gold. RPM South also hosts a magnetic geophysical anomaly that is similar but smaller than the one found at RPM North.
Priority two and three RPM targets include step-out holes along the roughly 1,400-meter magnetic anomaly at RPM North and testing another similar anomaly about 60 meters northwest of RPM-005.
The first drill rig is now turning at RPM, with two more expected to begin drilling there by the end of June.
"We are extremely excited to recommence drilling at the high-grade RPM deposit, which continues to amaze us," said Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen. "It is very gratifying to start from scratch in a new frontier doing what we do best and make such a significant discovery as we already have at the RPM deposit. With RPM showing all the signatures for over 1.4km (0.9 miles) in strike length we expect to rapidly increase both the size and confidence of the deposit in the current drill campaign."
While drills target the expansion and upgrade of the 1.5-million-oz gold deposit at RPM, various mine and process optimization, material haulage, and environmental studies for a phase-two Estelle scoping study, including both the Korbel and RPM deposits, are underway.
It is currently envisioned that a central mill and other facilities will be established at Korbel, a larger but lower-grade deposit about 16 miles north of RPM.
A phase-one scoping study, which was released by Nova in February, provided a first look at establishing an operation at Korbel.
This "snapshot in time" study was based on 286 metric tons of Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant indicated resources in the Korbel Main deposit averaging 0.3 g/t (3 million oz) gold, plus 583 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.3 g/t (5.1 million oz) gold.
Nova began its 2022 resource expansion and upgrade drilling at Korbel in May.
It is expected that upgraded resources for both RPM and Korbel will be incorporated in the phase-two scoping study later this year and a prefeasibility study slated for 2023.
The 125-square-mile (324 square kilometers) Estelle gold property also hosts several other targets Nova is eager to explore.
"Nova is in an ideal position to achieve our goal of progressing both Korbel Main and RPM into production, whilst concurrently unlocking the Estelle Gold Trend," said Gerteisen. "By implementing our dual exploration and development strategy, we will seek to maximise our ability to create value for shareholders through both resource growth and project development."
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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