Green and Gold Minerals has started an RC drilling campaign at the historical copper-silver mining centre of Copper Hills in the Herberton region.

The company plans to evaluate the historically mined high-grade veins as well as the broader mineralised system in the area.

It will assay for indium, tin and gold – all of which were omitted from historical drilling programs.

Green and Gold (ASX: GG1) said Metal prices for copper, silver, tin and gold were significantly higher today than when drilling was last conducted in 1980.

‘In addition, indium has since emerged as a critical metal due to its widespread usein semiconductors and flat panel displays,’ it noted in an update to the ASX.

‘As a result, the economic significance of the metalsidentified at Copper Hills is considerably stronger today than when the project was last drilled.’

Related: Large-scale copper-silver targets for Green and Gold

High-grade historic drill results at Copper Hills include:

• 4m at 139g/t silver, 1.3 per cent copper, 4.3 per cent zinc, 1.1 per cent lead from 101m (PDH7)
• 10m at 50g/t silver, 0.9 per cent copper, 2.5 per cent zinc, 1.5 per cent lead from 28m (PDH8)
• 3m at 91g/t silver, 2.3 per cent copper, 1.1 per cent zinc, 0.6 per cent lead from 46m (PDH4)

The company said recent rock chip sampling at Copper Hills had returned exceptionally high silver grades of up to 2212g/t.

Copper grades were also consistently strong, with most samples assaying greater than 5 per cent copper, with a peak value of 11.1 per cent copper.

Following completion of the Copper Hills drilling program, the rig is scheduled to relocate to Chillagoe for a short campaign at the Sentinel prospect.

It is then due to return to the Herberton Conductor Metals Project (HCM) to test the Mount Gossan breccia and the Siberia lode.

Rock chip sampling at the Mount Gossan breccia returned exceptional tin and indium grades, with sample GGSI012 assaying 16.7 per cent tin, 676 ppm indium and 1.2g/t gold, Green & Gold said.