Belltopper pops with new high-grade Novo gold hits

Novo Resources has jagged some solid gold numbers from a six-hole, 2529m diamond drilling program at its Belltopper project in Victoria, with a highlight hit of 2m going 15.18 grams per tonne gold from 185m.

The company says the intersection flagged a previously undiscovered gold-bearing reef, while 430m further south, a second hole shows 4.25m going 5.88g/t gold from 274.75m with 2m running 11.15g/t from 277m. The second hole indicates extended down-dip mineralisation to 120m at the Leven Star Reef in what appears to be an emerging high-grade zone.

Belltopper lies in the Bendigo Structural Zone in Victoria’s central goldfields, between Ballarat and Castlemaine and about 90km north-west of Melbourne, and several other important intercepts were made during the program including 12.26m at 1.45g/t gold from 185m with 4.6m going 2.64g/t gold from 185m.

Novo says two previously unknown reefs were discovered during the program, which also demonstrated the extension potential for several key reefs. A new high-priority north-west-trending corridor was also highlighted by the campaign.

Another hole not only intersected the Hanover Reef, but also identified a parallel reef along the Welcome Fault, offering up 4.1m at 2.37g/t gold from 36.1m. It remains the only hole drilled into the developing target corridor.

Novo Resources executive co-chairman Michael Spreadborough said: “It is exciting to see promising results in the Belltopper drill results and identifying new gold reefs. Our exploration activity across key assets continues to deliver results and importantly, we are well-funded to continue our strong exploration program throughout 2024.”

Management says the drilling encompasses significant gold results spanning several mineralisation styles. They include oblique-to-stratigraphy, high-grade shear or fault-related mineralisation like that seen at the Costerfield or Stawell mines.

It may also be layer-parallel laminated gold-bearing quartz, quartz breccia and west-dipping mineralised faults similar to the high-grade deposits seen at Fosterville mine. Furthermore, areas of broad, low-grade mineralisation are associated with the anticline-hosted saddle reef-style that historically contributed to the massive gold endowment of both the nearby Bendigo and Castlemaine goldfields.

Novo’s recent drilling pushes forward the momentum built from recent and current exploration efforts. The 2021-2022 diamond programs defined a gold-bearing felsic porphyry with intrusion-related gold magmatic arc (IRG) characteristics, where clear oxidized deposits are hosted in a quartz veinlet stockwork in oxidized porphyry stocks.

If proven, it would confirm a new mineralisation style in the region, in addition to highlighting several underexplored, kilometre-scale, high-grade gold reefs with emerging shoot potential, which have in many cases only been tested by a handful of scout or reconnaissance holes.

Previous drilling through 2021 and 2022 at Belltopper also returned significant results from underexplored historic gold reefs. They include the Missing Link, O’Connor’s, Queens Birthday, Panama and Never Despair reefs and the more advanced drilling at Leven Star Reef.

Future proposed or planned exploration at Belltopper is focussed on reviewing and re-logging historic drillholes relevant to homing in on the current target at the site. Several historic holes intersect known or modelled reef occurrences, but in many cases the reefs are either unsampled, partially sampled or only niche-sampled.

Where the unsampled prospective reefs are confirmed, they are infill sampled as part of the current program. The majority of assays from infill sampling of old historic core are still outstanding and that is an important component of a current detailed review of the Leven Star mineral resource.

Novo has also kicked off an expanded spectral logging program on pulps from key historic and recent drillhole samples and in conjunction with detailed multi-element data, the work will provide an additional critical layer to be spliced into the targeting model to assist with focussing on the most prospective areas for high-grade mineralisation.

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