Nevada Star defines large target at Man project

Vancouver — Nevada Star Resource (NEV-V) reports that this year’s exploration program has outlined a large massive to disseminated nickel-copper-PGE target within the Dunite Hill complex (formerly Tangle-Lake complex) of its MAN project in Alaska.

Geological mapping performed by Dr. Larry Hulbert of the Geological Survey of Canada has shown that the Dunite Hill mafic-ultramafic intrusive complex is one of the largest in the entire Nikolai (Alaska) and Kluane (Yukon) belt.

Detailed mapping combined with geophysical and geochemical surveys well as regional geophysical surveys conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, has produced a model for the occurrence of Noril’sk-style mineralization in the Dunite Hill area.

The similarities between the Noril’sk nickel-copper-PGE deposit in Russia and the Dunite Hill complex include mineralogy, geochemistry and tectonomagmatic setting.

Chemical studies of the intrusive body and the overlying basalt flows indicate a significant depletion in nickel, copper and platinum group elements. Soil geochemical sampling (mobile metal ion) has shown strong nickel and palladium anomalies in overlying glacial tills covering the margins of the intrusion. This may point to near surface sulphide mineralization within the basal portions of the intrusive complex.

Geophysical modeling of an airborne magnetic survey suggests that the Dunite Hill intrusive body is bowl-shaped with a strongly magnetic basal unit. Regional geophysical studies by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management have outlined a conductive zone, with coincident high gravity and magnetics that has a strike length of about 10 km within the core of the Dunite Hill complex.

The conductor is at a depth of approximately 3.5 km in the west but rises to within approximately 1 km of surface to the east, continuing towards surface around the margin of the bowl-shaped intrusion.

Nevada Pacific intends to perform a grid based geophysical survey covering an 8-by-4 km area to define drill targets. Surveys will include Induced Polarization to detect disseminated sulphide mineralization and gravity to detect massive sulphides. These data will be combined with existing geophysical data to define drill targets for the 2003 season.