Aylmer Lake find proves diamond-bearing

A narrow kimberlite dyke discovered during spring drilling on the Aylmer Lake West property in the Northwest Territories has yielded an encouraging number of microdiamonds.

A 1.6-metre-thick interval of olivine macrocrystic kimberlite has yielded 25 microdiamonds and two macrodiamonds from a small (4.85-kg) core sample. (A macro is here defined as exceeding 0.5 mm in one dimension.) Shear Minerals (SRM-V) cut the kimberlite while testing a geophysical signature that runs sub-parallel to the Nicholas Bay kimberlite complex. Three lake-based targets were tested in the recent drilling.

The Nicholas Bay kimberlite was previously tested with six core holes in 1994. A 230-kg sample had returned 176 micros and four macros. Shear re-examined those holes late last year and collected an additional 127.7 kg of kimberlite that had not previously been split or analyzed. Caustic fusion analysis on this additional material yielded 1,174 micros and six macros. The largest diamond recovered measured 0.68 by 0.64 by 0.56 mm. The highest number of stones from one sample was 110 from 5.75 kg.

The diamonds were characterized by Saskatchewan Research Council as generally clear and colourless, and as having well-formed crystal structures.

The Nicholas Bay kimberlite consists of at least two distinct phases: a tuffisitic kimberlite breccia containing numerous country rocks, and an olivine macrocrystic hypabyssal phase. Previous drilling cut intervals of up 90.7 metres of kimberlite breccia and up to 56 metres of hypabyssal kimberlite.

Shear and joint-venture partner Diamondex Resources (DSP-V) are considering a summer field program of prospecting, geophysics and possibly further drilling.

The Aylmer Lake West property is 340 km northeast of Yellowknife and 95 km southeast of the Ekati diamond mine. Shear is the operator and holds a 49% interest; Diamondex holds the remainder.

Print

Be the first to comment on "Aylmer Lake find proves diamond-bearing"

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*


By continuing to browse you agree to our use of cookies. To learn more, click more information

Dear user, please be aware that we use cookies to help users navigate our website content and to help us understand how we can improve the user experience. If you have ideas for how we can improve our services, we’d love to hear from you. Click here to email us. By continuing to browse you agree to our use of cookies. Please see our Privacy & Cookie Usage Policy to learn more.

Close