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Hole 41 Changes the Perspective at Copper Hill

By Ross Louthean

PERTH - One drill hole does not maketh a mine, a common saying in the explorers’ bible to ensure that only the rash overstep the mark.

However, a good drill hole, particularly in a zone away from an established mineral resource can certainly warm the cockles of the heart. That is what one of the latest deeper holes at the Copper Hill prospect in the central north of New South Wales has done for Golden Cross Resources NL [GCR].




The drill hole was a hit of 100 metres grading 0.82% copper [Cu] and 0.82 grams/tonne gold [Au] near the small town of Molong, and about 45 kilometres north of Newcrest Mining Ltd’s huge Cadia gold-copper mining operations.

It is not just this big single drill hit and a series of other positive wide intersections at Copper Hills that has enthralled veteran NSW explorer and Golden Cross’ managing director Dave Timms, but the fact that the mineralisation is in chalcocite. Abundant chalcocite ore gives easier leachable metallurgical characteristics.

The 100m section was in hole GCHR41 and significant mineralisation on this hole begins at 72m depth, and in a deeper section there are 16m @ 1.64% copper and 0.56 g/t gold. One other hole, GCHR43, hit 20m from 18m for 0.03% copper and 0.3 g/t gold and then from 56m a 28m section at 0.71% copper and 0.17 g/t gold.

The holes were drilled south of an established resource at Copper Hill, and Timms said the focus now will be to drill more holes in the southern zone to prove up more resources and to see whether the chalcocite mineralisation continues to live at depths of 150m and beyond. The hope will be that prospect can be upgraded to being a massive bulk tonnage operation similar to Newcrest’s Cadia Hills, which with its nearby Ridgeway underground mine, dominates NSW gold output.

Copper Hill was extensively drilled years ago and was acquired by Golden Cross from American miner Cyprus Minerals in 1997. (in two earlier lives Timms ran the Australian exploration offices for both Cyprus and Amoco Minerals) Copper Hill has an inferred resource of 4.9 million tonnes 0.7% copper and 0.9 g/t gold (based on an 0.5% copper and 0.5 g/t gold cut-off grade) with mineralisation in the established area occurring as broad bands of low grade copper and gold with localised enrichment of palladium.

Golden Cross is one of those resolute pluggers that has toiled away on its large holdings in the Lachlan Fold Belt and Curnamona Basin of NSW but is yet to achieve a cash flow.

The priority to get into production status is the Adelong gold project near Gundagai where, on treating ore grading 4.24 g/t gold, Golden Cross hopes later this year to produce 42,851 oz from a projected 14 months operating life. This has been in blueprint for some time but with advancing technology the company believes it can obtain improved recovery by utilising both gravity and heap leaching.

The other advanced project is the Kempfield silver-zinc-barite project, south west of Bathurst, which is now looking more attractive with the strong silver and improving zinc prices.

A new drill campaign is underway to try and add to the resource base that includes what Golden Cross considered to be a “world class barite resource.” The resource stands at 3.72 mt @ 95 g/t silver, and 9.36 mt grading 26.4% barite, 0.89% zinc, 0.6 g/t gold and 0.5% lead.

A scoping study for Kempfield visualises a 400,000 tpa milling operation to produce 40,000 tonnes per annum of barite concentrate, increasing to 80,000 tpa in year five