New copper challenger bared for Gladiator

Gladiator Metals Corp. Dec. 11 announced that its second phase of drilling discovered a new zone of high-grade copper mineralization at the Cowley Park target on the company's Whitehorse Copper project in Yukon, Canada.

"Drilling continues to define the continuity and scale of high-grade copper mineralisation at Cowley Park as well as providing further definition to the potentially significant coincident molybdenum mineralisation," said Gladiator Metals CEO Jason Bontempo.

Located just 10 kilometers (six miles) from Yukon's capital of Whitehorse, the Whitehorse Copper project is a 5,380-hectare (13,294 acres) copper-molybdenum-silver-gold skarn exploration project that was historically home to several past-producing copper mines.

Covering at least 30 known prospective targets along a 35-kilometer (22 miles) by five-kilometer (three miles) stretch of the Whitehorse Copper Belt, an area that produced approximately 267.5 million pounds of copper, 225,000 ounces of gold, and 2.84 million oz of silver from 11.1 million tons of skarn ore milled between 1967 and 1982.

Gladiator wrapped up a maiden drill program at Cowley Park around the end of July that included 2,632 meters of diamond drilling in 14 holes. Highlights from this initial phase of 2023 drilling included:

• 113 meters averaging 0.79% copper from 19 meters in CPG-002.

• 13.2 meters averaging 2.26% copper from 22.8 meters in CPG-003.

• 26 meters averaging 1.14% copper from 86 meters in CPG-010.

With such promising results, the company sought to continue drilling to further evaluate modern data with historical records.

The company has now received assays from the first nine holes of the second phase of 2023 drilling at Whitehorse. Highlights include:

• 26 meters averaging 1.49% copper and 368 parts per million molybdenum from a depth of 98 meters in hole CPG-017, including 15 meters averaging 2.36% copper and 421 ppm molybdenum, and four meters averaging 7.75% copper and 686 ppm molybdenum.

• 13 meters averaging 2.06% copper and 1,071 ppm molybdenum from 38 meters in CPG-023.

• 58 meters averaging 0.74% copper and 1,245 ppm molybdenum from 81 meters in CPG011D1, including eight meters averaging 1.65% copper and 1,905 ppm molybdenum.

• Seven meters averaging 1.45% copper from 52 meters in CPG-015.

• 58 meters averaging 0.62% copper from 57 meters in CPG-016, including seven meters averaging 1.99% copper and 867 ppm molybdenum.

With the results from CPG-015, Gladiator announced a new zone of skarn mineralization has been discovered.

"The discovery of a new zone of mineralisation only 50 meters to the south of the historical drill area in hole CPG-015 highlights the exploration upside at Cowley Park close to existing modelled mineralisation and supports the ongoing drill program targeting further extensions to the south and south-east," added Bontempo.

This drilling was initially designed to test extensions to high-grade mineralized and aid planning for resource definition drilling. Drilling targeted identified trends through step-out holes primarily to the south and southeast of identified mineralization, including following up on the most southeasterly hole to date, 19-CP-08, which intersected 43.28 meters averaging 2.24% copper.

With such promising results from the first batch, the company eagerly awaits the final results for the 2023 program.

"I look forward to reporting the remainder of the assays from this second drill campaign at Cowley Park in the coming weeks," finished Bontempo.