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Novus Gold - Only The Tip Of The Iceberg?
By Claire O'Connor and James West
MidasLetter.com
Monday, April 19, 2009
Novus Gold Corp. (TSX.V: NOV) is due to begin an extensive drill program on its REN Gold Property in the Northwest Territories this month. Assay results of re-sampled drill core from past exploration on the property have just confirmed that Novus are sitting on only the tip of a golden iceberg. This April, they’re going in.
A Canadian based gold explorer, Novus Gold has selected The Canadian Shield in Canada and the Caribbean Platform in the Dominican Republic as their two areas of exploration interest. However, it’s the REN Property on the Canadian end of their radar that’s garnishing headlines at the moment.
The REN Gold Property
The REN Gold Property covers 24,674 acres in the Northwest Territories and is located approximately 90 km southwest of the formerly producing Lupin gold mine (4 million ounces) owned by China Minmetals (formerly Kinross Gold Corp). It also contains banded iron-hosted gold showings similar to the Lupin mine.
Novus CEO Mike Magrum explains the significance of the REN location, and its neighbours. “What makes this property very interesting is that we are located only 20km from an air strip and a winter road. The transportation infrastructure goes into a property called the Izok Lake, which has a large defined resource of copper/zinc mineralization and is now owned by China Minmetals. They’re carrying out a very large program this year, so when you have a very large neighbour 20 km away, working towards putting their project into production, it says good things about the sensibility of your property.”
Acquired by Novus in May 2009, REN has a history. In 1964, two gold showings were discovered in the REN claims area by Point Lake prospecting. Ten years later another two gold showings were found by Texas Gulf Incorporated. Twenty-six holes were drilled totalling 3,145 metres.
Results At REN
The claims lapsed in 1986, and Cominco, formerly Teck Cominco, acquired them in 1987. They entered into a joint venture with Westview Resources Incorporated. In 1988, a 240 line-km magnetic and EM survey was completed and ground geophysics and geological mapping and sampling followed up on anomalies. Eleven BQ-sized holes totalling 1,280 metres tested seven conductors (AR 082743). In 1989 four holes totalling 1,372 metres tested the Main Zone. One hole intersected 9.3 g/t Au over 6 metres.
In 1990, 200 line-km of HLEM, magnetic, and gradiometric surveys were completed (AR 082944) and eighteen diamond drill holes totalling 2,396 metres tested eleven conductors. Six holes were
drilled in the Main Zone and its north strike extension. A new showing (Grizz) was tested by three holes and is thought to be an extension of the Main Zone iron formation.
Significant results worth noting might be that of The Banner Zone, a new showing in iron formation discovered in 1989. Chip samples assayed up to 198 g/t Au and the zone could be traced by magnetometer for 600 metres. Westview Resources Incorporated reported in 1990 that the Main Zone indicates the potential for a 1.8 to 2.7 million tonne deposit in the 10 g/t Au range.
Cue Novus
Magrum explains how and why he came across the property.
“Cominco came up with what they thought was the potential for 1 million oz which at the time, and in its location, didn’t make sense for such a big company… So they let it go and a prospector and myself acquired it, and then it came in to be part of Novus.”
Since Novus got their hands on REN last May, they’ve been steadily and successfully developing the property. In September Novus granted Terra Ventures (TSX-V:TAS) an option to acquire a 51% interest in the REN Property. In order to exercise the option, Terra must have incurred $1,500,000 in expenditures on the REN Property by December 31, 2009. Once Terra earned its interest, Novus has the option to repurchase Terra’s 51% interest by issuing 7,500,000 shares to Terra. In February 2010 Novus exercised its option to repurchase 100% interest in REN by issuing 7.5 million shares to Terra.
Exploration and Drilling
Drilling initially began on REN in November 2009 and in January of this year a wide gold zone was identified. The drill results clearly indicated a previously unrecognized wide zone of gold mineralization associated with iron formation. Gold assay values ranging between 2 to 3 g/t were reported for intersections that ranged from 10.61 to 32.76 meters. High-grade gold up to 22.40 g/t gold across 0.65 meters was also intersected.
Also identified by surface sampling and drilling on REN was a 7 Kilometre long gold zone. A total of 83 samples were collected and submitted for gold analysis. The samples were collected along the more than seven kilometre long iron formation within the REN property that includes the Main occurrence where a recent drill program was carried out.
Most of the samples came from known occurrences other than the Main occurrence. The Banner, Flag and Gord occurrences are located along the southern half of the iron formation, more than 3 kilometers south of the Main occurrence. Grab samples (17) collected from the Banner occurrence ranged from 0.07 to 205.00 g/t gold and grab samples (12) collected from the Flag occurrence ranged from 0.02 to 22.40 g/t gold
This, of course, was music to Magrums ears. “We were coming up with widths 15 – 30 meters wide of 2 – 3 grams gold which shows REN has got the potential to hold a deposit like theOsisko , Rainy River, Brent Resources… Even though the geology is not exactly the same, all of these types of deposits have the potential for multi million oz deposits of low grade gold mineralization and wide widths.”
Open In All Directions
The newest revelation at REN is of course the assay results from the re-sampled drill core obtained from Comincos previous exploration programs. The ongoing drill core sampling and logging program of drill core is being carried out with the core being split for assay and previously sampled sections being quartered using a rock saw.
These initial assay results are listed below, but basically they bring good news for Novus, as Magrum confirms. “We confirmed that the previous drilling only detected a small part of the gold; it’s open in all directions. We’ll be drilling very shortly on the property so will have a steady stream of news with that drill program starting up. There is certainly the potential for a million oz gold deposit here.”
Novus And The Dominican Republic
Aside from the success at REN, Novus also has high hopes for its Dominican Republic properties, La Yagua and La Pacienca.
The The La Paciencia concession is 8,600 hectares and very grassroots, but is located 10km West of the Pueblo Viejo gold deposit, one of the largest gold deposits in the world. Underlying rocks belong to the Los Ranchos formation, the same as Pueblo Viejo. The only recorded work on the property is stream sediment sampling with minor prospecting. Results indicate a presence of gold, copper and zinc mineralization. There has been no prospecting on the hill tops, where silicified mineralization such as in Pueblo Viejo, is expected to be found.
The La Yagua concession is 9,900 hectares in area and is located 20 kilometers SW of La Paciencia in rocks belonging to the Duarte formation. This concession is considered to be along strike the producing Cerro de Maimon mine (6 million tonnes of 2.5% copper, 1.2 g/t gold and 38 g/t silver). Preliminary prospecting on this concession has located a zone of silicified and massive sulfide. The silicified and massive sections yielded 2.3 g/t and 8.6 g/t gold, respectively.
Novus Gold Corp. have it the way all mining companies want to have it; they have their hands full. Re-sampling at REN is still underway with another drill program scheduled for the end of April. Detailed surface exploration and a drill program is in the pipeline for La Yagua, and surface work to delineate drill targets on La Paciencia is anticipated to test potential for Pueblo Viejo style mineralization.
Follow their progress at www.novusgold.com.
DISCLOSURE: A fee has been paid for the production and distribution of this article and as such should be viewed in the context of advertising.
SOURCE: http://www.midasletter.com/news/10041901_Novus-gold-tip-of-the-iceberg.php
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