Another new kimberlite discovery at Chidliak shows promising potential

The Chidliak diamond project on Baffin Island in Canada’s Far North continues to demonstrate tremendous potential with the release of a new batch of microdiamond results.

The latest results show the CH-44 kimberlite has a very promising coarse diamond size distribution. CH-44 is one of 34 new kimberlites Peregrine Diamonds (pgd-t) discovered this year at Chidliak.

Among the 910 microdiamonds recovered from a 312.2-kg sample of reverse circulation (RC) drill cuttings taken from CH-44, were nine commercial-size diamonds that exceeded a 0.85-mm screen size and weighed a total of 0.45 carat. The implied diamond content of the sample is 1.44 carats per tonne.

The parcel included a 0.32-carat diamond, described as an off-white, transparent octahedron. Of the eight remaining larger size diamonds, two were white or colourless, five were off-white and two were brown in colour.

“We are very encouraged by these results from CH-44, yet another kimberlite at Chidliak with a strong coarse diamond size distribution and economic potential in Arctic settings,” said Brooke Clements, president of Peregrine, in a prepared statement.

“The CH-44 pipe is located in what we now refer to as the Southern Focus area, an area with an 8 km radius that currently hosts five kimberlites with economic potential: CH-1, CH-6, CH-7, CH-31 and CH-44,” explained Clements. A sixth promising kimberlite, CH-28, occurs in the north half of the project.

CH-44 was discovered by drilling a single hole into a magnetic high geophysical anomaly, 1 km west of the 5-hectare CH-31 pipe and 2.5 km south of CH-7. A vertically-drilled RC hole intersected kimberlite from 2 to 35 metres depth before shutting down while still in kimberlite.

The magnetic geophysical anomaly of CH-44 has a surface expression of 0.9 hectare. The kimberlite is described as an olive macrocrystic unit containing abundant indicator minerals, including garnet chrome diopside and ilmenite. Paleozoic rock fragments and basement xenoliths were observed in the drill cuttings.

“This kimberlite clearly requires more work in 2011, including core drilling and mini-bulk sampling,” Clements stated.

Peregrine’s 49%-owned Chidliak project covers 9,800 sq. km on southern Baffin Island in the Nunavut Territory, 120 km north of Iqaluit. The remaining 51% is held by BHP Billiton (bhp-n, blt-l), which has a one-time option to earn an extra 7% interest if it chooses to fund the project to completion of a bankable feasibility study. BHP has until the end of November to decide.

With 50 kimberlites discovered to date, this new kimberlite camp extends 70 km in a north-south direction and 40 km east-west. Peregrine also discovered two diamondiferous kimberlites, Q1 and Q2, on its adjacent 100%-owned Qilaq property, further expanding the potential of the region.

In addition to CH-44, newly released microdiamond results for CH-19, CH-21, CH-23, CH-35 and CH-38 show all five kimberlites are diamond-bearing, but with much lower counts.

Results are as follows: a 188.5-kg sample of CH-19 held just a single microdiamond; 13 micros were recovered from 192.8 kg of sample from CH-21; CH-23 yielded 7 stones from a 267.2-kg sample; a 239.3-kg sample collected from CH-35 returned 8 microdiamonds; and CH-38 delivered 51 diamonds under a 0.425-mm sieve size from 188.6 kg of sample.

Kimberlites CH-19, CH-21, CH-23 and CH-35 were all found by prospecting while investigating prospective geophysical anomalies. In all cases, abundant kimberlite boulders and cobbles were discovered at surface associated with the airborne features.

The CH-38 kimberlite was discovered by drilling a 1-hectare magnetic high anomaly. Two cross-cutting holes positioned on each side of the anomaly intersected roughly 100 metres of kimberlite.

Microdiamond results have been reported for 24 of the 50 kimberlites discovered to date, with 23 being diamond-bearing. Results for the remaining kimberlites discovered in 2010 are expected by year end.

At presstime, Peregrine was trading off a 52-week high of $3.29.