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

Nova Minerals Ltd. Jan. 19 announced plans to complete more than 20,000 meters of drilling to expand upon the wide sections of high-grade gold mineralization encountered last year at the RPM North deposit on its Estelle gold property in Alaska.

Located toward the south end of the Estelle property, RPM North is a relatively early-stage deposit that Nova Minerals only started drilling in 2021.

Following up on a 2012 hole drilled by a previous operator that cut 177.4 meters averaging 0.79 grams per metric ton gold, and its own surface sampling and mapping, Nova completed six holes at RPM North last year. Highlights from that drilling include:

• 326 meters averaging 0.3 g/t gold from surface in hole RPM-001, including a 37-meter subsection averaging 1 g/t gold from 224 meters.

• 274 meters averaging 0.6 g/t gold from surface in hole RPM-002, including a 128-meter subsection averaging 1 g/t gold from 31 meters.

• 400 meters averaging 3.5 g/t gold from surface in hole RPM-005, including a 132-meter subsection averaging 10.1 g/t gold from 89 meters.

• 220 meters averaging 1 g/t gold from surface in hole RPM-006, including a 101-meter subsection averaging 2 g/t gold from 34 meters.

Based on this drilling, RPM North hosts 23.1 million metric tons of Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant inferred resource averaging 2 g/t (1.5 million ounces) gold.

Nova says regional geophysics has identified a magnetic anomaly that confirms continuity of the mineralized intrusive contact zone found by the highest-grade zone in hole RPM-005 that extends for 1,000 meters along strike.

Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen says the geophysical evidence, which correlates directly with the high-grade mineralized intrusive contact and is supported by drill hole structural data, strengthens his confidence in the size and tenor of RPM.

"Over 20,000 meters of diamond drilling is planned in RPM's northern area to extend strike up to 1 kilometer to the west of RPM-005 as confirmed by magnetic anomaly," he said. "Dense drill spacing around the existing resource area is aimed at proving up a significant portion of the RPM resource to higher confidence indicated status."

Expansion of RPM could significantly expand the 9.6-million-oz resource the company has outlined so far at Estelle.

The bulk of this resource is currently found at Korbel Main, which lies about 16 miles north of RPM.

Nova Minerals Ltd.

A map of RPM showing the magnetic anomalies and targets for the more than 20,000-meter drill program slated for 2022.

According to a calculation completed in December, Korbel Main hosts 286 million metric tons of indicated resource 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.

In addition to the 20,000 meters of drilling slated for RPM North, Nova is planning to complete an initial 3,000 meters at RPM South, which lies about 600 meters to the southeast. Rock samples collected by Nova geologists from the surface at RPM South returned assays with as much as 103 g/t gold.

"Over 3,000 meters of diamond drilling is also planned to intersect and define additional resources in RPM's southern area, which shows a much larger surface sample mineralized footprint and a high-grade gold zone similar to what we've founded in RPM's northern areas," said Gerteisen.

CORRECTION: The single hole drilled by a previous operator was completed in 2012. The previous version incorrectly stated the hole was drilled in 2021.

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Shane Lasley, Publisher

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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