Nova Minerals further enhances Estelle Gold Project in Alaska with mineralisation observed at RPM prospect

Nova Minerals Ltd (ASX:NVA) (OTCMKTS:MVAAF) (FRA:QM3) continues to enhance its Estelle Gold Project in Alaska with highly encouraging observations from its RPM prospect.

The precious metals explorer has identified mineralisation at RPM that bears a strong correlation to historical drilling data (120 metres at over 1g/t) from the area.

Nova CEO Christopher Gertesein said: “The rocks we are observing in the drill core from the holes completed to date at RPM show we are hitting the target and intersecting the mineralised zone.”

Exploration across the gold prospect forms part of a broader drilling campaign across Estelle’s Korbel Main and RPM prospects, which lie 25 kilometres apart in a mineralised intrusive system that runs through the property, with fifteen known similar significant targets.

Nova is aiming to substantially increase the prolific Tintina Gold Belt project’s 4.7-million-ounce gold resource, which is hosted on the Korbel Main prospect alone.

“Just the beginning of the Estelle journey”

Speaking to the latest observations, Gertesein continued “Samples from holes RPM 001, 002 and 003 are now on the way to the lab for analysis. The continuity and correlation of mineralisation with the historical hole that encountered 120 metres at over 1g/t are further evidence of the potential of a significant intrusive related gold system at the RPM prospect (one of 15 known prospects).

“The drill program is ongoing over the coming months, and we look forward to bringing shareholders results as they become available.

“In time, we expect to define multiple new shallow gold resources that will further support our goal of aggressively growing the resource inventory as we continue to move towards gold production at the Estelle Gold Project.

“We will keep the market updated on the results of these programs as we progress. We currently have 4.7-million-ounce at the Korbel Main deposit, which represents just the beginning of our Estelle journey.”

Rock chip sampling at RPM

Nova’s drill collar location was designed by high-grade reconnaissance rock chip samples, collected in 2020 after historical drilling on the prospect.

Overall, the ASX-lister believes the samples define an expanded footprint of the prospect’s high-priority gold targets. Sampling has returned high-grade results, ranging between 5 g/t to 291 g/t gold.

More broadly, drilling work is progressing on track, aiming to delineate a maiden resource later this year for RPM and moving the project through its development pipeline in addition to increasing the Korbel Main resource.

A fifth drill rig is expected to arrive on-site later this week to accelerate exploration across the Korbel Main and RPM prospects, while, a geological crew will kick off fieldwork in a bid to uncover new targets within the Estelle Gold District.

Assays are also pending for more than 10,000 metres of drilling across the gold targets, with a resource update for the Snow Lake asset due shortly.

Exploration at Korbel Main nods to gold upside

Today’s update comes just days after Nova released gold results from drilling at Korbel Main.

Fresh assays from infill and step-out drilling across the extensive prospect’s South East portion have uncovered up to 11.7 g/t gold.

One hole returned an overall average grade of 0.7 g/t over 308 metres from surface within the Korbel mineralised intrusive and this contained multiple high-grade zones.

Promisingly, engineers believe the new data has “huge material upside implications” for the economics of Nova’s upcoming scoping study.

Although the study is 80% complete, engineers have requested an extension so they can include all drilling results until after Korbel Main’s scheduled resource upgrade, due in quarter four of this year.

Story by ProactiveInvestors