Novo Resources Corp. announced that the Company will commence diamond drilling at the Belltopper gold project in Victoria, following on from a highly successful drill campaign completed during 2021 ? 2022.

A series of high-priority diamond drill targets have been generated at Belltopper. This follows an in-depth review of recent and previous exploration activities combined with a large volume of key historic mining and exploration data extracted from historic records and digitised into the current 3D target model. Pivotal to target development has been on-the-ground exploration including diamond drilling), detailed 1:500 scale mapping, targeted rock chip sampling and grid soil sampling.

Grid soil sampling highlighted key prospective target corridors on the project, including a robust Au + As soil anomaly that sits to the east and in the footwall of the regional Taradale Fault; representing a very high priority corridor that will be tested in the upcoming program. Surface mapping and rock chip sampling, in combination with 3-D modelling of historic reef data has allowed a detailed understanding of target reef geometries and zones of high structural complexity, including structural intersections (e.g. potential shoot zones) and features such as anticlinal hinge zones. These are fundamental characteristics seen in other structurally controlled high-grade deposits within the region (including at the Fosterville mine) and represent a key component of the current drill targets.

The FY22 diamond drilling campaign at Belltopper returned several highly significant intersections2 from numerous high-priority targets that warrant follow up drilling, including the Missing Link Reef and Missing Link Granite, the O?Connor?s and Queens Birthday Reefs and the Leven Star Reef. Two holes in the current program will test the Leven Star Reef and a potential extension of mineralisation to the NE. One planned hole is designed to target 80 m down-dip of previously reported high-grade mineralisation that included: 14 m @ 6.1 g/t Au from 120 m, 10 m @ 4.9 g/t Au from 173 m and 4 m @ 8.6 g/t Au from 188 m (MD16)1 from a developing, significant, high-grade zone.

Recent geophysics completed at Belltopper include ground magnetics, ground gravity and an Induced Polarisation (IP) survey collected during Fourth Quarter 2022, in addition to an airborne FALCON gravity and magnetic survey completed in 2021. Reprocessed historic geophysics including regional gravity and airborne magnetics, and a historic ground gravity survey was completed by Haines in 2008. Remote sensing data (LiDAR) collected in 2020 and 2022 provided valuable source data for detailed mapping and to identify historic workings.

Gravity and magnetic datasets were fundamental in delineating key structural trends, potential alteration and interpreted sub-surface lithological domain boundaries. The LiDAR provides high-resolution characterisation of old historic surface workings and mining infrastructure (including dumps and stockpiles) and therefore accurately delineates mineralised structural trends. Several high-tenor chargeability anomalies were identified during the 2022 dipole ?

dipole ground IP survey at Belltopper. Chargeability anomalies commonly represent zones of increased sulphide mineralisation which can, in turn, be associated with, or a vector toward gold mineralisation. The most significant chargeability anomaly at Belltopper occurs within a key regional anticline corridor with known gold mineralisation and no modern drilling.

This represents one of two high-order IP anomalies that will be tested as part of the upcoming drilling campaign.