Great Southern Copper (GSCU ) has commenced its Phase IV diamond drilling programme at the Cerro Negro prospect in Chile.
All permits have been finalised and the rig is currently being mobilised to the project site.
Up to 5,000 metres is planned, and will encompass efforts to boost the size of the deposit at Mostaza, and to follow-up lodes identified in previous campaigns.
This campaign will also include the first-ever drilling at Monolith, after extensive surface copper and silver was identified there in channel sampling.
"We are very excited to commence this next drilling programme at Cerro Negro – our fourth drilling programme of the prospect since the discovery of high-grade copper-silver beneath the historic Mostaza mine last year,” said Sam Garrett, chief executive of Great Southern Copper.
“The drilling programme has three aims – to infill and extend the known high-grade copper-silver mineralisation at Mostaza; explore for and add new copper-silver lodes along the Mostaza Fault Zone trending south of the Mostaza deposit, and discover potential new copper-silver lodes at Monolith where the company has identified anomalous copper-silver over a broad area in altered dacite dome rock that is closely consistent with the Mostaza mineralisation.”
View from Vox
With so many targets to test and an increasing understanding of the detailed Cerro Negro mineralised system, Great Southern is now aiming to build the foundations for a potential maiden resource estimate. Previous drilling highlights have included 20 metres at 3.31% copper and 269.9 grams per tonne silver from 27 metres depth, and 21 metres 2.9% copper and 246.7 grams silver from 35 metres, so there’s clearly very rich mineralisation on offer.