The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Surface sampling turns up 24 g/t gold, 6% copper at discovery North of 60 Mining News – February 2, 2024
Miarolitic quartz cavities discovered while exploring the Wombat gold-copper prospect at the Estelle project in Alaska.
Click on image for larger map of Wombat and other Estelle prospects sampled last year.
Nova Minerals Ltd. Jan. 29 reported that the expansive surface exploration program carried out last year at Estelle has discovered another high-grade gold prospect with associated copper on the 198-square-mile (513 square kilometers) property in Alaska.
Led by Nova Minerals Head of Exploration Hans Hoffman, the 2023 surface exploration program included extensive mapping and the collection of 674 soil, 446 rock, and 21 stream sediment samples from across the district-scale property about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage, Alaska.
The expansive 2023 sampling program turned up high-grade antimony and gold at the newly discovered Stibium and Styx prospects; high-grade gold, antimony, silver, and copper in the Train and Trumpet resource target area in the southern part of the Estelle property; high-grade gold, antimony and copper at the Shoeshine and Shadow prospects about 1,000 meters east of Trumpet and Train; and high-grade copper and gold at the Discovery and Muddy Creek targets immediately north of Trump and Train.
"We are beginning to recognize the multi-element potential within numerous prospects across Estelle, including antimony, copper, silver, and certain critical elements. These elements have the potential to add significant by-product credits in any future production scenarios," said Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen. "As these are coincident with the gold, an analysis of these elements is something we plan to include in our upcoming exploration programs."
Located about midway between the large Korbel gold deposit to the north and the Trumpet and Trains resource target to the south, the newly discovered Wombat prospect hosts the thickest gold-bearing quartz veins identified so far at Estelle.
"Nova geologists have discovered an impressive zone hosting gold-bearing massive quartz veins," said Hoffman. "Numerous arsenopyrite-bearing quartz veins one to four meters in width have been discovered across an approximately one-kilometer (1,000 meters) strike length."
Samples collected from the outcropping veins at Wombat have returned grades as high as 24.2 grams per metric ton gold, 0.55% copper, and 0.05% antimony; 15.2 g/t gold 3.01% copper and 0.03% antimony; and 3.7 g/t gold, 2.29% copper and 0.1% antimony.
One chip sample returned 1.7 g/t gold and 6.08% copper.
The highest-grade gold samples were collected from the southern side of a ridge at Wombat, but the 3.7 g/t gold rock sample and 1.7 g/t gold chip sample, both with high-grade copper associated, were collected from the north side of the ridge. Miarolitic cavities, voids lined with crystals of various minerals, were also identified on the north side of the ridge at Wombat.
"Gold grades are better in the veins outcropping on the southern side of the ridge, but the miarolitic cavities with well-developed quartz crystals on the northern side of the ridge is a site to be seen," said Hoffman. "Given the size and frequency of these large veins, we feel Wombat can be developed into a viable drill target to further feed the project's pipeline of developing gold deposits."
Further results from the surface sampling carried out across the Estelle property last year, as well as from the reexamination of multi-element data from historical samples to determine the presence of antimony, are expected to be reported by Nova over the coming weeks.
"The Wombat discovery further highlights the massive exploration upside potential across the Estelle Project area," said Gerteisen. "We have truly only scratched the surface out there and expect further discoveries as we systematically explore the 513,000-square-kilometer claim block."
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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