THE DIAMOND PAGE — Ashton and Pure Gold drill for diamonds in Alberta

Partners Ashton Mining of Canada (ACA-T) and Pure Gold Resources (PUG-T) have launched a drill program aimed at uncovering diamonds in the north-central part of Alberta, northeast of Grande Prairie.

The diamond drilling effort will test a series of 10 isolated geophysical anomalies, which Ashton President John Auston says exhibit all the characteristics of kimberlite pipes.

The joint venture covers a land package of 3.3 million acres in the Buffalo Hills area.

Under an option agreement with an Alberta energy firm, Pure Gold is funding the first $500,000 in return for a 15% interest in the project. Ashton, the operator, can earn a 42.5% interest by funding the next $5 million.

Past work by Monopros identified the Mountain Lake kimberlitic stock intrusive.

“It’s an area where the basement rocks are overlain by a fair thickness of young sediments,” says Auston. “These anomalies look as if they are pipes that have punched up through the young sediments.”

Recent sampling by the Alberta Geological Survey recovered a large number of pyrope garnets in two glacial till samples from a site in the extensive joint-ventured ground.

Unlike the Northwest Territories, where the glacial till is generally thin, the Buffalo Hills area features glaciation that is complex. Also, whereas, in the Territories, sampling has proved effective in tracing indicator minerals back to source, in the joint-ventured area overburden depths range from 100 to 200 ft., making it difficult to determine the source.

Nonetheless, the presence of garnets suggests that some of the pipe-like anomalies could be diamondiferous, Auston says.

In related news, Troymin Resources (TYR-A) has acquired 1.3 million acres of ground in the immediate area.

Farther south, in the Hinton area, Kennecott Canada has started drilling on ground held through various joint ventures with Montello Resources (MEO-A), New Claymore Resources (NCS-V) and Troymin.

Kennecott has spent the past 18 months completing follow-up ground magnetic surveys on 147 airborne targets. Twenty-one of these anomalies are targeted for drilling.

In total, 24 diamonds and numerous indicator minerals have been recovered from stream-sediment sampling. Kennecott says it is encouraged by the presence of diamonds and diamond indicator minerals in the streams, coupled with the occurrence of nearby discrete magnetic anomalies. Magnetic modelling suggests that the source of the magnetic anomalies will be fewer than 50 metres from surface.