Canada’s Novo Resources may not have had a major new discovery to dazzle attendees with at this year’s Denver Gold Forum, but the explorer did show just how much nuggetty gold there is in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

Novo revved up excitement for Pilbara conglomerate gold at this time last year when it orchestrated a live video stunt at the world’s most prestigious precious metals conference.

Conglomerate gold refers to nuggets hosted in rock containing rounded grey quartz pebbles and other minerals.

The world’s most productive gold region, South Africa’s Witwatersrand Basin, is famous for its similar geological formation.

During last year’s presentation, Novo chairman Quinton Hennigh crossed to a live video of prospectors digging nuggets out of the ground at the Purdy’s Reward project.

In the lead up to this year’s Denver Gold Forum there was a flurry of announcements from Pilbara gold explorers trying to again reignite the spark.

This year Novo again showed a video, but it was more about demonstrating scale and reflecting on the discoveries made so far.

Nuggets found at Egina by Farno-McMahon. Pic: Novo.
Nuggets found at Egina by Farno-McMahon. Pic: Novo

Indicating just how far this nuggetty gold extends, Mr Hennigh pointed to its newly

Mr Hennigh told delegates at this year’s forum that it has explored a 3.6km strike at Purdy’s Reward and the system still remains open in both directions.

“We have done heritage clearance on some areas to extend our exploration,” he said.

“We also have identified numerous places where we can start taking bulk samples. These would be large samples of tens of thousands of tonnes.”

acquired Egina project – which is 120km away from Purdy’s Reward.

Novo is picking up the project via the purchase of private explorer Farno-McMahon.

“At Egina there’s really two significant gold systems,” Mr Hennigh noted.

“We became aware of Egina last year when prospectors showed us some nuggets from this area.”

Nuggets found at Egina are identical to those found at Purdy’s Reward, Mr Hennigh said.

“This is basically a very expansive gold system,” he said.

“We know that there are hundreds and hundreds of historic gold patches out in the flats there.”

Meanwhile, Novo is getting very close to releasing an updated resource at its Beaton’s Creek project.

“We did some work in 2017,” Mr Hennigh said. “That work is going to be used to update the resource very shortly, probably in the next couple of weeks it will be announced.

“The target is quite large. I want to give a sense of scale here – these are big, big systems.”

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