Reward Minerals starts first drilling at Newfoundland gold-copper target
Reward Minerals has begun the first-ever drilling at its Mountain Pond project in Newfoundland, testing whether a surface quartz vein and shear zone continues underground. New soil results have also outlined copper targets at Ante Up and Wildcard, but the project remains firmly in the discovery phase.
- Seven-hole, approximately 600-metre maiden diamond drilling program underway
- Jackpot drilling to test depth and strike extensions of surface mineralisation
- Ante Up soil sample peaks at 510ppm copper
- Wildcard copper anomaly extends more than 800 metres
- Assay results expected as samples become available
Maiden drilling begins at Jackpot
Reward Minerals Limited (ASX:RWD) has moved Mountain Pond from surface exploration to its first drill test, beginning a planned seven-hole diamond campaign at the Jackpot gold-copper prospect in Newfoundland, Canada. The approximately 600-metre program is designed to test whether an outcropping mineralised quartz vein and its associated shear zone continue below surface and along strike.
The holes will range from about 40 metres to 160 metres in depth. Jackpot’s known mineralisation sits within an approximately 8-metre-wide shear zone hosted by mafic volcanic rocks, including pillowed basalts. Reward says the drilling is intended to establish continuity and scale beyond the outcrop; it does not yet provide evidence of a mineral resource or a defined subsurface deposit.
Copper anomalies broaden the target corridor
The drilling comes alongside final multi-element results from 505 regional soil samples collected across much of the interpreted Sullivan Pond Fault trend. At Ante Up, the peak copper-in-soil result was 510 parts per million, while sampling at Wildcard produced a copper anomaly extending for more than 800 metres across three consecutive sample lines.
Reward says the results identify both copper-dominant areas and copper anomalism associated with known gold occurrences. Together with several other prospects, the targets form a prospective corridor extending at least 2.2 kilometres. That is useful target-generation evidence, but soil anomalies are reconnaissance results and cannot establish grade continuity, thickness or economic significance.
Three weeks of drilling, then the assays
The Mountain Pond project covers 41 contiguous claims over roughly 10 square kilometres, around 7 kilometres northeast of Springdale and about 112 kilometres by road from Reward’s Copper Lance project. Reward acquired the project in February 2026 and has since combined historic data with new soil and rock-chip sampling to refine its targets.
The drilling program is expected to take approximately three weeks. Core will be logged, photographed, cut and sampled at Reward’s facility in Springdale before submission to laboratories in Springdale or Grand Falls-Windsor. The company intends to release assay results as they become available, making the first core observations and laboratory results the next meaningful test of the Jackpot interpretation. Follow-up soil and rock-chip work is also planned at the new copper targets, while the company expects to progress mapping and sampling at Bingo over the next two quarters.
Bottom Line?
The key catalyst has arrived, but the investment case still depends on whether drilling converts surface clues into coherent mineralised intersections.
Questions in the middle?
- Will the Jackpot vein and shear zone deliver continuous mineralisation at depth and along strike?
- Do the Ante Up and Wildcard copper anomalies reflect bedrock mineralisation or broader surface dispersion?
- How quickly will Reward receive and report the first assays from the maiden campaign?
