The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drill taps three gold zones at high-grade deposit at Estelle North of 60 Mining News – October 7, 2022
Nova Minerals completed 31 holes at RPM North and RPM South during its 2022 summer drill program at Estelle.
As the first snows of the 2022 winter season arrive at Estelle, crews continue to drill the Cathedral gold discovery at the north end of the district-scale property.
Nova Minerals Ltd. Oct. 4 reported that drilling continues to cut wide sections of strong gold mineralization at the RPM North deposit on the Australian company's Estelle project in Alaska.
Located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, the 125-square-mile (324 square kilometers) Estelle property hosts two deposits with a combined 9.6 million ounces of gold and multiple of prospects and targets across an 18-mile- (29 kilometers) long trend.
RPM, which lies about 16 miles south of the 8.1-million-ounce Korbel gold deposit at Estelle, hosts 23.1 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging two grams per metric ton (1.5 million oz) gold.
This year, Nova is building upon this resource with expansion drilling at RPM North, which hosts the resource, and exploration drilling at the nearby RPM South target.
Highlights from previously reported assay results from this year's drilling RPM North include:
• 140 meters averaging 6.5 g/t gold from a depth of 44 meters in RPM-008, including 56 meters averaging 10.1 g/t gold and two meters averaging 53.4 g/t gold.
• 155 meters averaging 2.4 g/t gold from a depth of 16 meters in hole RPM-010, including 30 meters averaging 10 g/t gold and three meters averaging 56.4 g/t gold.
• 258 meters averaging 5.1 g/t gold from surface in hole RPM-015, including 161 meters averaging 8.1 g/t gold, and 14 meters averaging 51.2 g/t gold.
• 113 meters averaging 1.4 g/t gold from a depth of eight meters in hole RPM-018, including 55 meters averaging 2.1 g/t gold and 11 meters averaging 4.5 g/t gold.
Further drilling at RPM North has identified three gold mineralized zones – Main, Middle, and Lower.
The latest batch of results includes one hole, RPM-025, that cut 198 meters averaging 2.1 g/t gold across all three zones. This includes:
• 62 meters averaging 6 g/t gold from a depth of 43 meters, including 15 meters of 19.2 g/t gold from 56 meters (Main zone).
• 31 meters averaging 0.7 g/t gold from a depth of 288 meters, including six meters of 4.5 g/t gold (Middle zone).
• 76 meters averaging 1.2 g/t gold from a depth of 440 meters, including 30 meters of 1.7 g/t gold from 486 meters (Lower zone).
The highest-grade intercept in the latest batch of results, however, came in hole RPM-022. This hole cut 67 meters averaging 10.4 g/t gold from a depth of 112 meters, including 34 meters of 19.4 g/t gold from 118 meters (Main zone).
Nova completed 31 holes during the now complete drill program at RPM. This includes 23 holes at RPM North and eight at RPM South. Assays are pending from 15 of these holes, including all the holes drilled at RPM South.
Though 2022 drilling is complete at RPM, rigs continue to turn in the Korbel area of the project. This includes infill drilling to upgrade the Korbel Main resource and exploration drilling at Cathedral, which lies about 1,000 meters to the southwest.
Further details on Cathedral can be read at Nova Minerals begins drilling Cathedral in the September 2, 2022 edition of North of 60 Mining News.
Nova intends to complete a phase-two scoping study for a mine at Estelle that includes new resource estimates for Korbel and RPM. Slow turnaround times at assay labs, however, is slowing this work. This second scoping study was originally slated for completion later this year followed by a prefeasibility study for mine development in 2023.
"The latest results show that it is important that we include as many of the drill results from the current program as we can in the upcoming MRE (mineral resource estimate," said Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen. "In light of this, PFS level trade off studies have now commenced in tandem which aims to optimize the project with a view to increasing the gold production schedule and NPV (net present value) significantly across the Estelle Gold Trend."
"We are only getting started as we continue on our path to increase resource size, confidence and towards commercial production," he 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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