THERE’S gold in them there St Catherine hills’.

Well, some.

Canadian prospector Carube Resources said that tested soil samples collected from nine trenches at its Bellas Gate Project — a mineral exploration project focused on identifying commercial quantities of copper in a 87-square kilometre area in central Jamaica — confirmed high presence of the base metal.

“Results from the trenching indicate that high metal values, primarily copper, correlate well with highly anomalous copper, gold and silver values from the soil samples,” said a release issued by the company.

“The trenches not only confirm the presence of the soil anomalies in the weathered rock, but indicate impressive widths of oxidised material rich in copper and, in specific instances, the presence of gold and silver, in spite of the trenches bottoming in a zone most probably leached of metals.”

Diamond drilling (one drill operating now and a second being mobilised) is underway with a number of holes being completed. The holes drilled to date show evidence of mineralisation, and assays should be available in about 90 days.