North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Nova Minerals Ltd. Sept. 2 said results from this year's drill program at its Estelle gold project in Alaska has cut higher grade, near-surface mineralization within a bulk tonnage gold deposit at Oxide Korbel.

Oxide Korbel is a prospect area that roughly covers an area previously referred to as Oxide Ridge toward the north end of the roughly 18-mile-long Estelle property.

SE11-01, the Oxide Ridge discovery hole drilled by Millrock Resources Inc. in 2011, cut 450.7 meters averaging 0.38 grams per metric ton gold.

This hole lies in the southeast corner of what Nova now refers to as Oxide Korbel Resource Block A.

SE12-04, drilled about 450 meters 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.

This hole is within Oxide Korbel Resource Block B.

Nova Minerals resampled hole SE12-04, which returned 180.1 meters of 0.53 g/t gold starting from a depth of 1.8 meters.

The company drilled a fence of three holes south of SE12-04.

OX-RC-16, a reverse circulation hole drilled about 80 meters south of SE12-04, cut 70.1 meters of 1.2 g/t gold from a depth of 10.7 meters. This includes a 21.3-meter section that averaged 2.45 g/t gold from 12.2 meters.

OX-RC-17, drilled about 125 meters west of hole 16, cut 61 meters of 0.49 g/t gold from 10.7 meters.

OX-RC-18, drilled from the same location as hole 17 but angled toward the west, cut 76.2 meters of 0.29 g/t gold.

Nova said these results confirm its theory that Oxide Korbel could represent a large bulk tonnage gold deposit similar to Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox gold mine in Interior Alaska and Victoria Gold Corp.'s Eagle Gold mine in the Yukon.

The Australian company is also encouraged by the higher grades tapped in hole 16.

"We are excited with these high-grade intercepts and the discovery of high-grade material for an initial starter pit which starts near surface at the Oxide Korbel prospect so early on," said Nova Minerals Managing Director Avi Kimelman. "In these large bulk tonnage deposits these starter pits are critical to provide more informed economic data going forward."

Nova Minerals Ltd.

Nova said the 18 holes it drilled this year has confirmed the Oxide Korbel resource blocks A and B span over 1,000 meters of strike and average up to 500 meters wide, respectively. The mineralization there generally starts at surface and drills have consistently traced mineralization to a depth of 150 meters.

The results from this drilling are being used to calculate a maiden Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant inferred resource for Oxide Korbel.

Two other untested Oxide Korbel targets – C and D – lie to the west.

"We have only scratched the surface in the Oxide Korbel deposit area to date," said Kimmelman. "The gold mineralization is open in all dimensions and additional diamond drilling is planned to establish the outer limits and depth extent of the deposit. Targets C and D have similar geological and geophysical characteristics and will also be drill tested."

–SHANE LASLEY