The Geological Survey of Canada has taken a keen interest in diamond exploration in recent years, triggered by the crop of new mines developed or under development in Canada’s Northwest Territories and neighbouring Nunavut.
In the past year, the GSC has also conducted research programs in Saskatchewan and Ontario. A team has been working with a consortium of exploration companies exploring in Saskatchewan’s Fort la Corne district to document the diamond potential of kimberlite volcanic rocks that originated 101 million years ago. At that time, two separate and highly explosive eruptions spread kimberlite ash and coarser material over broad areas of the tropical lands and seas that covered most of modern-day Saskatchewan. This material contains uneconomic microdiamonds and, on the basis of preliminary analysis, what appear to be eroded fragments of macrodiamonds.
The GSC describes this as a new exploration model for Canada, differing from traditional kimberlite-pipe models, such as exist in South Africa and Lac de Gras.
GSC scientists have also completed preliminary studies on the Peddie kimberlite, near New Liskeard, Ont. The pipe is being developed as the GSC’s first multidisciplinary test-site for diamond exploration methods. Geophysical, biogeochemical and soil geochemical tests are planned for the site.
The Peddie kimberlite contains a high volume of large olivine grains that give the pipe a distinctive mineralogical signature, and this can be traced down-ice in the overlying till. The excavations also revealed an unweathered upper portion of the kimberlite displaying what may be the first reported striated kimberlite surface.
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