Novo Resources has unearthed an impressive total of three new broad areas of gold-bearing alluvial gravel swales, or shallow channels, at its flagship Egina conglomerate gold project in the Pilbara. The Paradise area, which is host to two of the newly discovered gold-bearing areas, is about 14 kilometres north-northeast of Novo’s Egina mining lease. Another new discovery, known as Clarke, is just 10 kilometres northwest of Egina.
One of the gold-bearing channels is about 700m wide and up to two metres thick and is just southwest of Paradise, the other channel is about 450m wide, up to two metres in thickness and about 1.5km southwest of the main Paradise area.
According to Novo, both new areas at Paradise look very similar to the gold-bearing gravels at Egina.
Encouragingly, Novo has been able to keep running its operations on-site with a skeleton crew, amongst global travel restrictions due to COVID-19. It has been analysing stockpiled bulk samples collected from its new gold-rich areas since March.
At Paradise, one tonne samples have been collected from trenches dug up to 3m deep and spaced about 50m across the gold target areas.
Novo has been running one tonne samples through its mobile alluvial Knudsen, or “MAK” concentrating plant. The MAK plant is a centrifugal gold concentrator that uses G-forces to separate heavier gold particles.
Although the MAK program is essentially a first pass sampling method, Novo has written a new textbook on how to effectively quantify the amount of gold in these notoriously nuggetty alluvial deposits.
During this first phase of sampling, Novo is taking the MAK concentrate and meticulously panning the fine slurries down by hand, to the point where the gold grains can be counted.
Novo’s in-field team then counts all the gold particles that are larger than one millimetre from each of the one tonne samples during this phase and the company said that MAK samples from both of the alluvial channels at Paradise have very similar gold grain yields to those seen across the lucrative Egina channel, which has now been identified over an impressive 50m width.
One bulk gravel sample at Egina yielded an impressive 562.25 grams from about 414 cubic metres.
Unlike conventional hard-rock gold deposits, alluvial deposit grades are commonly reported in grams per cubic metre, rather than grams per tonne. “Tonnes” measure the weight of material, whereas “cubic metres” measure the volume.
Depending on the density of the rocks - the higher the density, the “heavier” the material - one tonne is equivalent to just over one cubic metre.
The conglomerate gold explorer knows these types of rocks probably better than anybody and it now has a good handle on the characteristics of the geology, geomorphology and treasures from across its Pilbara play.
Despite the impressive size already, the company said the new channels may get wider still, the further afield its Geologists explore.
The company has also made a new discovery at Clarke, which is about 10 kilometres from Egina. MAK samples from Clarke yielded gold particle counts of over 50 particles per sample and one that contained about 600 particles, according to Novo.
It is now planning to conduct a more rigorous and systematic sampling program across its new gold-bearing areas.
Novo President and Chairman Dr Quinton Hennigh said: “Although much more work is needed, including bulk sampling to evaluate grade, swales appear to broaden as we head northward.”
“This is what we need to see to generate volume.”
“Given that we have numerous areas planned for systematic MAK sampling in 2020, promising results from the first area to be methodically tested gives us high hopes the geologic model will quickly foment across the greater terrace.”
Novo has pretty much pioneered the conglomerate gold sector in the Pilbara, with its field Geologists pretty much re-inventing the wheel each time they take a walk in the field.
The TSX-listed company has been squeezing out more and more gold from its ancient alluvial gold deposits and is still yet to really scratch the surface of this extensive and obviously lucrative land holding.
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By Matt Birney
