Karratha Gold Project Update Completion of Mineralization Report and Outline of Future Work
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 28, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Novo Resources Corp. (“Novo” or the “Company”) (TSX-V: NVO; OTCQX: NSRPF) is pleased to announce completion of a mineralization report and an outline of future work at its Karratha Gold Projects, Western Australia.
Novo’s recent geological mapping has successfully extended the known semi-continuous conglomerate trend over a distance of approx. 10 km at the Karratha Gold Project, approximately 2 km longer than previously recognized. In addition to conglomerate gold mineralization, reconnaissance mapping has extended a previously identified basement gold zone at East Well, yielding high grade rock chip samples from quartz veining including assays up to 73.9 g/t Au, 11.2 g/t Au and 6.7 g/t Au (not necessarily representative of mineralization at East Well) with further rock chip samples pending across a strike length of approximately 4km (Figure 1).
It is well understood that delivering a conventional mineral resource at the Karratha Gold Project is challenging owing to the extremely nuggety nature of the deposit. Accordingly, Novo has worked closely with independent experts (Mr Ian Glacken, Director of Geology at Optiro Ltd and sampling and geometallurgical expert, Dr Simon Dominy) to ensure the Company’s QA/QC processes and sample collection methodologies are sufficiently robust to underpin this mineralization report. Development of this mineralization report has become a guiding discipline to ensure Novo can pursue a mining lease application as well as update its NI 43-101 technical report for the Karratha Gold Project.
This mineralization report details the geology and exploration recently carried out by Novo in this area, including diamond drilling, bulk sampling, detailed mapping and 3D model building and has confirmed the existence of significant coherent gold mineralization. Of critical importance, it further identifies areas amenable to large-scale bulk sampling, necessary for confirming gold grades across a broader area from this highly nuggety deposit.
Geology and Mineralization
The main focus of the mineralization report is to coalesce all geological information gleaned thus far and can be broadly summarized as follows:
The occurrence and geological setting of a unique style of gold mineralization has been delineated across Comet Well and Purdy’s Reward (50% Joint Venture with Artemis Resources Limited). The mineralization comprises generally coarse gold, which is predominantly present as ‘melon seed’ nuggets, together with finer gold particles found almost exclusively within haloes around many of the nuggets. Gold is hosted mainly in conglomeratic rocks of various types, predominantly related to two predictable geological horizons that can be mapped.
The majority of mineralization of this type has been identified on the Comet Well and Purdy’s Reward tenements, but this generally coarse-grained conglomerate style of gold mineralization has been discovered over a wide spatial area in the Western and Northern Pilbara by Novo and other explorers, indicating the potential of the region as a significant new gold camp.
A series of bulk samples taken to date (initially approximately 300 kg samples at Purdy’s starting in 2017 and approximately 5 tonne samples from Comet Well during 2018 exploration activities) have returned grades up to 10.4 g/t gold (please see the Company’s news releases dated May 31 and October 26, 2018 - http://novoresources.com/news-media/news/), with significant gold mineralization demonstrated along the 2 km exposed strike length on the Comet Well and Purdy’s Reward leases.
Project Development Strategy and Future Work
The project development strategy proposed for Comet Well and Purdy’s Reward closely mirrors that at Novo’s Beatons Creek Gold Project, approximately 350 km east of Karratha, which recently culminated in the granting of mining leases. The nuggety nature of gold in conglomerates at Beatons Creek required utilization of 50-kg ‘bulk’ samples to augment traditional exploration and sampling techniques. Following these small-scale bulk samples, a large-scale bulk sampling exercise consisting of around 30,000 tonne of gold bearing material was excavated and 9,680 tonnes processed to confirm grades. A key difference between Beatons Creek and Comet Well-Purdy’s Reward is that Comet Well-Purdy’s Reward exhibits much larger gold nuggets, requiring a substantially larger sample (of the order of 100,000 tonnes) to adequately assess gold grade. The coarse nature of the mineralisation also requires development of a tailored grade control regime and processing flowsheet that ensures successful definition of bulk sample grades.
Future Work:
Planned work at Comet Well and Purdy’s Reward includes:
- Ongoing field work – including mapping, drilling, bulk sampling as appropriate
• Development of a tailored grade control methodology suitable for the style of mineralization as conventional grade control techniques of drilling and assaying are unlikely to yield reliable outcomes at Comet Well / Purdy’s and cannot be used to guide a large-scale bulk sampling process. - Grade control
• Mechanical sorters represent a possible technical breakthrough that may assist in a more accurate determination of gold grade. The scanning devices used in mechanical sorters ‘see’ gold content within rocks but rely upon algorithms that count pixels of gold mineralization to identify individual rocks for sorting (please see Figure 2 below from the Company’s news release dated November 19, 2018 - http://novoresources.com/news-media/news/display/index.php?content_id=331). By processing individual truck-loads, the number of gold pixels for a given sample can potentially act as a proxy to reconcile the gold grade from each load, deriving grade and thereby producing a 3D field model of gold distribution. - Determine appropriate processing solution
• The solution identified above for grade control (mechanical sorting) is being investigated as a basis for processing of a large-scale bulk sample and offers the benefits of being chemical and water free, mobile and of low capital intensity. There remain some technical challenges to processing the entire sample with mechanical sorters, however Novo is making significant progress in addressing these challenges. - Submit Program of Works approval for a circa 100,000 tonne large-scale bulk sample to the Department of Minerals, Industry Regulation and Safety.
- Once approval is achieved from the DMIRS, undertake a large-scale bulk sampling program to confirm representative gold grades over a larger area and demonstrate an effective grade control regime
• Sample representivity is an iterative process – gold particle size distribution must first be known in order to apply statistical analysis to estimate a representative sample size. It has been recognized that Novo’s bulk sampling to date (300 kg – 5,000 kg) yields indicative gold grades only and that substantially larger samples are required to produce a representative grade.
• Benefiting from geological understanding gained through exploration activities, a series of prioritized locations for larger scale bulk sampling have been identified using the following criteria:- located within the approved exploration license or proposed mining lease areas;
- located within the approved disturbance zone from a Native Title Heritage perspective;
- close to the surface to minimize the cost and complexity of excavation;
- near to previous geological sampling (bulk sampling or drilling) to provide increased geological certainty; and
- in areas of suitable topography to allow relatively simple access, operation and remediation.
Figures 3, 4, 5 and depict five areas identified as amenable for large-scale bulk sampling across the Comet Well and Purdy’s Reward project areas. A nominal 100,000 tonnes of sampled material, in total, is envisioned to be of a sufficient sample size to ascertain the representative indicative grade of mineralization across the project.
- Timing for undertaking the large-scale bulk sample is contingent upon resolving technical challenges with mechanical sorting technology and approval to take a 100,000 tonne sample. Potential solutions will be trialed during this 2019 field season at Egina, where Novo plans to process a number of large samples (each circa 100 tonnes).
“I am very pleased with the progress made to date at the Karratha Gold Project,” commented Rob Humphryson, CEO and Director of Novo. “To their credit, the Novo team has managed to overcome significant technical challenges presented by this unique nuggety gold system with a combination of innovative thinking and sheer hard work. Novo met a similar challenge at Beatons Creek where it recently announced a sizeable gold resource. We see the path at Karratha following a similar path with a component of mechanical sorting being critical to success. Working on conglomerate gold mineralization requires an iterative approach. We think work we will be doing at Egina this year will play a part in helping us advance the Karratha Gold Project.”
Rock chip samples from East Well were submitted to the Intertek-Genalysis Laboratory in Perth, Western Australia. The entire sample was crushed and pulverised to -75um and assayed as follows:
- 50 gram lead collection fire assay with flame AAS finish for gold;
- Multi-acid digest with ICP-MS finish for 48-element suite.
Dr. Quinton Hennigh, P. Geo., the Company’s, President, Chairman, and a Director, and a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has approved the technical content of this news release.
About Novo Resources Corp.
Novo’s focus is to explore and develop gold projects in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, and Novo has built up a significant land package covering approximately 13,000 sq km with varying ownership interests. For more information, please contact Leo Karabelas at (416) 543-3120 or e-mail leo@novoresources.com
On Behalf of the Board of Directors,
Novo Resources Corp.
“Quinton Hennigh”
Quinton Hennigh
President and Chairman
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
Forward-looking information
Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information (within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation) including, without limitation, statements as to planned exploration activities, as well as the expected timing of commencement and completion of exploration activities. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. Such factors include, without limitation, customary risks of the mineral resource industry as well as the performance of services by third parties.
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