BEATONS CREEK

The Beatons Creek Paleoplacer Gold Project, near the town of Nullagine in Western Australia, is one of Novo Resources' Pilbara Paleoplacer gold projects. At Beatons Creek, Novo is exploring for gold-bearing conglomerates within the Hardey Sandstone Formation, part of the Fortescue Group, a thick sequence of ancient sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Historic mines near the town of Nullagine exploited pyritic gold-bearing reefs as early as the late 1800's. Otherwise, the area has seen only very limited modern exploration. Through a 100% interest in certain tenements and a joint venture agreement with the Creasy Group on others (70% Novo, 30% Creasy Group), Novo is undertaking systematic exploration for gold-bearing reefs across this approximately 160 square kilometre project, employing large diameter diamond drilling, 50kg costean sampling and approximately 2 tonne bulk sampling to progress resource definition work.

Near the town of Nullagine, the Beatons Creek Formation is partially exposed along the Nullagine embayment, a 50-kilometer long north-trending half-graben extension of the Hammersley Basin up to approximately 30 km wide. Fortescue Group sedimentary and volcanic rocks filling the embayment are up to 3 kilometres thick, resting unconformably on ancient igneous and metamorphic rock of the Pilbara craton. Gold-bearing conglomerate horizons occurring within the Beatons Creek member of the Hardey Formation were exploited by historic mines near the town of Nullagine along the eastern margin of the embayment as early as the late 1800's.