So now this way- the whole story:
Nova Minerals grows Estelle position with strategic new licences added.
Nova Minerals continues to build on its strategic Estelle gold trend footprint in Alaska’s prolific Tintina gold belt with the staking of 98 new mining claims.
The expansion of its land holding in the rich Estelle district provides the company with an additional 63 sq km in close proximity to both US Gold Mining’s 5.5 million ounce gold equivalent Whistler gold-copper porphyry deposit and the Whiskey Bravo camp and airstrip.
The new claims add 14% of land mass to Nova’s current holdings and expand the claim block to a total of 513 sq km.
They also present further opportunity to follow-up on Nova’s recent success in growing a valuable antimony opportunity for its future mining plans.
On the ground studies
The company elected to snap up the new acreage following a major review of the district by
Nova’s head of exploration, Hans Hoffman.
Over the past few months he has collated valuable hands on information with an extensive regional surface exploration mapping, sampling and prospecting program.
In his studies, Mr Hoffman not only investigated a number of new exploration targets within the Estelle gold project he also spent a good deal of time reviewing the new claims block area.
Nova is currently awaiting on the return of assay results of the soil and rock chip samples collected in the new claims block, but chief executive officer, Christopher Gerteisen, said the initial geological observations from the area look promising for gold, silver, copper and antimony mineralisation.
Assay results from the first pass surface sampling program on the new claim block are due back shortly.
Highly prospective ground
Mr Gerteisen said the additional claims are located on the eastern side of Nova’s existing Estelle tenements and were staked to capture more highly prospective ground in close proximity to the Whiskey Bravo camp and airstrip and the Whistler gold-copper porphyry deposit.
“I’m pleased to announce the acquisition of further highly prospective ground along the Estelle Gold Trend. The new claims area is situated to the north of Train and to the east of the Stoney prospects, which are two of our highest ranked targets at Estelle, where we have already confirmed high grade gold, silver, and copper targets,” he said.
“Our geologists have long recognised this area as having potential for mineralisation and this year we finally got out there to conduct reconnaissance and confirmed that the same mineralised rock units found at Estelle extend into the new claim area.”
“All the indicators are present there for the styles of mineralisation that have been discovered thus far across the district. These include intrusive related gold systems (IRGS) similar to RPM and Korbel and porphyry copper-gold systems similar to US Gold Mining Inc’s nearby Whistler copper-gold deposit.”
The Nova chief executive officer said the antimony potential in the exploration areas is also significant.
“We have made exciting new observations with indications of antimony mineralisation, noted as an abundance of massive stibnite hosted in quartz veins within areas coinciding with potential gold mineralisation. Stibnite is the primary ore source for the critical mineral antimony.”
Antimony critical to US plans
Antimony has been listed as a mineral critical to US economic and national security by the US Department of Interior, a distinction also held by rare earth elements, cobalt, and uranium.
According to the US government’s International Trade Commission, antimony’s key properties are its ability to harden and strengthen certain metals.
During World War II, antimony was key to US production of tungsten steel and the hardening of lead bullets used in combat; at the time up to 90% of antimony demand was fulfilled through domestic production.
Today, antimony is used across numerous industrial sectors, resulting in diffuse consumption compared to some other critical materials.
As of 2020, the leading uses of antimony in the United States were in flame retardants, lead-acid batteries, as a key alloying material for strength and antifriction alloys.
Additionally, antimony is used in a variety of military applications, including night vision goggles, explosive formulations, flares, nuclear weapons production, and infrared sensors.
Future Market Insights forecasts that the global antimony market is likely to be worth $4.5 billion by 2032, growing at a 4% CAGR from 2022 to 2032.
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