Nova Minerals Ltd. (formerly Quantum Resources Ltd.) July 31 said it plans to complete at least 8,000 meters of drilling over the next six to eight weeks at the Estelle gold-copper-silver project about 100 miles northwest of Anchorage.

The Australia-based explorer optioned Estelle late in 2017 as part of a larger deal that included four other Southwest Alaska properties – Chip-Loy, a nickel-copper-cobalt-gold-silver-platinum group element project; Bowser Creek silver-zinc-lead project; Windy Fork, a rare earths property; and Ozzna Creek, a gold-silver-zinc-copper-lead property – collectively known as the Alaskan project.

Nova Minerals' 2018 program will initially focus on Oxide, an Estelle prospect previously drilled by Millrock Resources Inc.

SE11-01, the discovery hole drilled at Oxide in 2011, cut 450.7 meters averaging 0.38 grams per metric ton gold.

SE12-04, drilled to the southeast of the discovery hole in 2012, cut 41.5 meters averaging 1.1 g/t gold, indicating the drilling was vectoring toward higher gold grades as it approached a strong geophysical anomaly further southeast.

Using the drill data from Millrock's work in the area, Nova has calculated that a 740-meter section of the larger Oxide prospect provides an exploration target with between 1.1 million to 2.3 million ounces of gold. The Aussie explorer's primary focus this year is to complete enough drilling to substantially expand this target area and calculate an Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant resource by the end of the year.

The first 20 holes will test the induced polarization geophysical anomaly southeast of Millrock's previous drilling and testing the target zone for more than 900 meters to the northwest.

Nova is also excited about testing a geophysical target at exploration area two, which is about 2,300 meters west of previous drilling at Oxide. The company said an IP chargeability high forming over a magnetic low is indicative of potentially higher grade gold-copper mineralization at this target.

A third drill target, exploration area 3, is a strong magnetic high about 2,000 meters east of the previous drilling at Oxide. Nova sees this as a potential placer gold target but is not ruling out the possibility that bedrock gold-copper mineralization could also exist here.

Nova plans to begin metallurgy studies by the end of this year with the idea of quickly moving the Estelle project into pre-feasibility studies, anticipated to begin in 2019.

Nova Minerals Ltd.

–SHANE LASLEY