Gladiator Resources (ASX:GLA) has begun its exploration program at its flagship SWC Target within its 724km-square Mkuju Uranium Project.
The $11.22 market capitalisation company reports it has encountered ‘highly mineralised’ material in the first trench.
The region hosts significant sandstone hosted uranium deposits including the 125Mlb U3O8 Nyota deposit. Trenching will be followed by drilling in early 2024.
Gladiator mobilised a team and has completed its first trench of a planned 4 at SWC. A 30m long zone is present with scintillometer readings over 1000 cps and up to >9,999 cps, the maximum for the device.
The company says mineralisation is hosted in highly weathered sandstone (saprolite) with yellowish secondary uranium visible within the matrix (between the sandstone grains). The trenches are to be a maximum of 180m long and 3m to 4m deep.
The first is at the location of 2008 auger hole MRSA12. The next trenches are planned at the site of auger holes MRSA06 and MRSA07. Samples will be collected from the trenches and sent for analysis.
Concurrently with the trenching, a 120-line kilometre ground radiometric survey is to be completed during October. The data from this work will inform a drilling program which is planned to test the depth and lateral extent of the known and potentially new areas recognised from the ground radiometric data.
Gladiator notes the target is a relatively intense 3.5 x 1.8 kilometre airborne radiometric anomaly in the southwest corner of prospecting lease 12354 which was recently secured by the company.
The target is at the end of a 12km long NE-SW oriented trend of radiometric anomalies referred to as the Mtonya-SWC trend.
Gladiator says SWC has the most intense radiometric anomaly of all those on the trend but no exploration has been carried out since 2008 except for a single diamond core hole drilled in 2012.
Reportedly, Mantra (which originally drilled the auger holes) did not follow-up the highly elevated U3O8 results at the time due to prioritising their large Nyota uranium deposit 50km to the north which was central to an $1 billion takeover by Uranium One in 2011.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Gladiator Resources
