Highlights
- Drilling has recommenced with two rigs at the high-grade advanced Cowley Park copper prospect.
- 5,000m within a fully funded and planned 13,000m summer drill program is scheduled over 4 sections at Cowley Park targeting both the resource potential and exploration upside of high-grade copper skarn mineralization.
- Drilling will test exciting new shallow, undrilled, chargeability anomalies identified from recently completed Induced Polarization (IP) surveys, potentially related to unrecognised copper sulphide bodies.
- Last month ~2,500m were completed at the Little Chief and Arctic Chief prospects, intersecting significant widths of copper-gold mineralization. Assays pending.
Drilling at Cowley Park - August 2024
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Gladiator CEO, Jason Bontempo commented:
"Following the successful closing of the Company's $9m private placement, Gladiator has commenced its fully funded, Phase 1, 13,000m summer drilling campaign testing exploration targets and extensions to zones of known, high-grade, copper-skarn mineralization to demonstrate the near-term resource potential of our lead prospects including Cowley Park, Arctic Chief, Best Chance and the Cub trend.
Drilling has now commenced at Cowley Park with two diamond drill rigs testing both the resource upside of known mineralization and exciting new drill targets identified from geological compilation work, mapping and Induced Polarisation geophysics."
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - August 27, 2024) - Gladiator Metals Corp. (TSXV: GLAD) (OTCQB: GDTRF) (FSE: ZX7) ("Gladiator" or the "Company") has now recommenced drilling, with two rigs targeting both the resource potential and exploration upside of high-grade copper skarn mineralization at Cowley Park.
Cowley Park - Resource and Exploration Drilling
The Resource program plans to establish 4 systematic drill fences (Figure 1) on 120m- 200m spacings through the known prospect area. Drilling at Cowley Park is planned to:
- Confirm and test the continuity of near surface, high-grade copper mineralization identified from previous drilling for future high-grade copper resource definition.
- Test new shallow, undrilled, chargeability anomalies identified from recently completed Induced Polarization (IP) surveys, potentially related to unrecognised copper sulphide bodies.
- Test significant exploration upside including extensions to known high-grade copper skarn mineralization and test sub-parallel trends recently identified in drilling.
- Test the previously unrecognized resource potential of the endoskarn copper mineralization at Cowley Park which has not been systematically targeted or sampled in historic drilling.
- Test the economic potential of complimentary co-products to copper mineralization including molybdenum, gold and silver.
Figure 1: Plan map of the advanced Cowley Park, showing planned Section Lines & Planned hole collars (teal) versus historical and completed drill collars (purple).
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Recent geological modelling of the Cowley Park prospect has identified multiple areas of significant exploration upside (refer to news release dated May 28th, 2024) which will be the subject of planned exploration drilling this summer (refer to Figure 1 below) including:
- Southeastern extension: The interval in CP-159 represents the most south easterly intercept of copper skarn mineralization to date, with mineralization remaining open under cover.
- Northeastern extension: The most north-easterly copper-skarn intercept at Cowley Park is 43.28m @ 2.24% Cu from 93.27m, including 13.72m @ 5.41% Cu (19-CP-08) with mineralization remaining open to the east under cover.
- Sub Parallel trends: Additional, unexplored sub-parallel trends under cover indicated by initial drilling including 10m @ 1.23% Cu from 204m in CPG-015.
- Western extension: Recent mapping undertaken at Cowley Park has identified a significant fault that may have displaced the main mineralized body on the western side, opening up significant potential for the mineralization to extend west.
- Depth extensions: Mineralization remains open at depth with the deepest intervals drilled to date, including 14.33m @ 1.22% Cu from 130.15m (18-CP-03) including 5m @ 2.78% Cu, remaining open at depth.
Figure 2: Plan map of the advanced Cowley Park. Select recent and historical drill results with a cumulative copper%*m of >40 highlighted. Map shows recently identified areas of exploration upside from geological modelling.
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In addition, drilling is following up on recently identified near surface chargeability anomalies identified from Induced Polarization (IP) surveys conducted at Cowley Park. The IP successfully mapped geology and sulphide mineralization known from areas with existing drilling providing confidence that these new chargeability anomalies may represent untested copper sulphide bodies (refer to Figure 3 below).
Figure 3: Section through Cowley Park (Planned Line 3 - Figure1) showing recently completed Induced Polarization survey (chargeability) highlighting new shallow, untested zones of chargeability potentially representing undrilled zones of copper sulfide mineralization.
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Summer Exploration Strategy Recap
Following the Company's successful closing of its $9M private placement (refer to news release dated June 25th 2024) and as part of the objective to establish high-grade copper skarn resources at the Whitehorse Copper Project, the Company has launched its Phase 1 drilling campaign which will be testing multiple, high-priority target areas.
Gladiator's planned Phase 1, 13,000m, summer drilling campaign will be targeting high-grade copper skarns throughout the Whitehorse Copper Belt by way of:
1 - Advancing to Resource Definition at:
- Cowley Park resource target: 3,000m. Establish initial drilling framework for inferred resource drilling at Cowley Park.
- Chiefs Trend resource target: 1,500m. Identify further high-grade, near-term copper resource potential by testing southern target area.
2 - Exploration Drilling at:
- Arctic Chief: 2,500m. Highlight continuity of high-grade near surface copper and gold mineralization for future resource drilling.
- Best Chance: 1,500m. First drill test of outcropping high-grade, magnetite-copper skarn mineralization and test continuity of mineralization between Best Chance and Arctic Chief prospects.
- Cowley Park exploration: 2,000m. Targeting upside potential for further copper-skarn mineralization at Cowley Park.
- Cub Trend exploration: 2,500m. Highlight continuity of high-grade, near surface, copper and gold mineralization for future resource drilling.
Drilling will be complemented by planned geophysical programs including Induced Polarization (commenced), Electromagnetic and Magnetic surveys to help refine drill targeting in the prospect areas and highlight undiscovered areas of exploration potential.
QA / QC
Drilling completed by Gladiator was irregularly spaced to test parts of the mineralised systems, holes were directionally surveyed utilising a North Seeking Gyro direction tool. Drill collars were being subsequently surveyed utilising a high-accuracy RTK DGPS system.
Upon drilling of diamond core Gladiator undertakes geological logging, marking up of lineal length of the core, recording core recovery, and Geotech measurements such as RQD's and taking core photographs.
Based on the geological logging, core is then marked up for sampling with a new sampling ticket that matches the submitted sample for analysis at the start of the sample interval, the drill core is then cut in half utilizing a core saw equipped with a diamond saw blade. The core samples are then sent for analysis and the remaining half core retained for future reference. Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) or known blank material, or requests for coarse duplicate repeats are placed within the sampling sequence at a nominal sampling rate of approximately 1 in 20 samples to monitor the Laboratory. Samples are submitted to ALS Global laboratory (Canada).
Samples subject to this release were crushed to 70% less than 2mm before pulverizing to better than 85% passing 75 microns. Samples were then analysed by ALS method ME-ICP61 (Aqua Regia with ICP-MS finish), with over limits for Cu analysed by method CU-OG62 and other elements by their relevant )G62 method (Aqua Regia with ICP-MS finish). As part of this process, Gladiator also captures the required sampling metadata to potentially utilize the core and analysis for any future requirements if deemed acceptable. The QA/QC meets the current required standards under reporting instruments, such as NI-43-101. At this point the Company regards the data collected from this exercise as reliable for the purposes of identifying future exploration targets and may be used to inform future drilling and exploration campaigns.
In reference to historic drill results reported in this news release from the Company's data compilation exercise, these results are historical in nature. Gladiator has not undertaken any independent investigation, nor has it independently analyzed the results of the historical exploration work in order to verify the results. The Company believes that the historical drill results currently do not conform to presently accepted industry standards. Gladiator considers these historical drill results relevant as the Company will use this data as a guide to plan future exploration and drilling programs. The Company also considers the data to be reliable for these purposes, however, the Company's future exploration work will include verification of the data through drilling.
Qualified Person
All scientific and technical information in this news release has been prepared or reviewed and approved by Kell Nielsen, the Company's Vice President Exploration, a "qualified person" as defined by NI 43-101.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
"Jason Bontempo"
Jason Bontempo
President and CEO
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.
Certain of the statements and information in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information". Any statements or information that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "plans", "estimates", "intends", "targets", "goals", "forecasts", "objectives", "potential" or variations thereof or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms and similar expressions) that are not statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements or information.
Forward-Looking statements or information are subject to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements or information, including, without limitation, the ability to define an initial inferred resource at Cowley Park, the speculative nature of exploration and the stages of the Company's properties; the effect of changes in commodity prices; regulatory risks that development of the Company's material properties will not be acceptable for social, environmental or other reasons; availability of equipment (including drills) and personnel to carry out work programs; and that each stage of work will be completed within expected time frames and can be funded without the need for additional capital or that if required, additional capital can be raised by the Company through financings. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of the Company's forward-looking statements or information. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated, described or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information.
The Company's forward-looking statements and information are based on the assumptions, beliefs, expectations and opinions of management as of the date of this news release, and other than as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements and information if circumstances or management's assumptions, beliefs, expectations or opinions should change, or changes in any other events affecting such statements or information.
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