During this year’s $17.7-million diamond exploration program at the Chidliak project in Nunavut, joint-venture partners Peregrine (PGD-T) and BHP Billiton (BHP-N, BLT-L) found four new kimberlites: CH-52, CH-53, CH-54 and CH-55.
Chidliak, covering 8,580 sq. km on the south end of Baffin Island, is now home to 55 kimberlites, with the new CH-52 to CH-55 kimberlite discoveries, which brings the count of kimberlites found this year to five.
“We continue to discover kimberlites at a very fast pace at Chidliak, and we believe that many more will be found in this rapidly growing new Canadian diamond district,” said Peregrine’s president Brooke Clements, in a press release. He added, so far, seven of the 35 kimberlites tested show economic potential in an Arctic setting.
The four new discoveries, including the CH-51 kimberlite discovered in April, all have an estimated surface expression of 1 hectare.
Kimberlite CH-52, 200 metres east of Sunrise camp, was discovered by a vertical reverse-circulation (RC) hole. The hole hit 25 metres of overburden, then 21 metres of gneiss before intersecting 19 metres of kimberlite. The company says CH-52 will see core drilling if the initial results are promising.
Kimberlite CH-53, some 5 km northeast of CH-28, was found by a core hole drilled at an inclination of minus 50 degrees into a known anomaly. The hole returned 8 metres of ice and water, then 40 metres of overburden and 32 metres of gneiss, before intersecting kimberlite, starting at 80 metres.
About 11 km northeast of Sunrise camp, Peregrine, the operator of the ongoing program, uncovered kimberlite CH-54. It hit kimberlite breccia at 43 metres depth after passing through ice and water and overburden. From 43 metres to 160 metres, the company notes finding kimberlite with various amounts of gneiss and country rock breccia, before hitting 35 metres of gneiss.
Kimberlite CH-55, about 17 km south of kimberlites CH-17 and CH-51, intersected kimberlite breccia at 51 metres after passing 9 metres of overburden and 42 metres of gneiss.
Along with the new discoveries, Peregrine drilled core holes into two kimberlites – CH-17 and CH-28 – that were discovered last year.
The junior drilled its first core hole into CH-28, which at an inclination of minus 45 degrees hit 180 metres of kimberlite starting from 11 metres. Kimberlite CH-28 is interpreted to have a size of 2 hectares, based on drill and geophysical data.
Discovered under a lake, CH-17, initially didn’t return enough metres for diamond testing in 2010, but did so in this year’s winter program. A hole punched into CH-17 hit 118 metres of kimberlite starting from 47 metres depth.
The company says it will examine drill core gathered this year from the CH-51, CH-53, CH-54, CH-55, CH-17 and CH-28 kimberlites and from the RC drilling at the CH-52 kimberlite for diamonds by caustic fusion at the Saskatchewan Research Council Geoanalytical Laboratories. The results are expected from the lab by the third quarter.
Peregrine also completed an 11,000 line-kilometre heli-borne magnetic/electromagnetic geophysical survey that was flown at 100-metre line spacing, and is combing through the data to pick prospective targets for drilling. It notes that anomaly 557, 300 metres south of kimberlite CH-55, is next in line to be drilled.
The junior adds four targets tested this year didn’t return kimberlite, and says it will test two new kimberlite targets before working on the diamondiferous CH-31 and CH-33 kimberlites.
On news of the four kimberlite discoveries, Peregrine shares shed 5¢ to close at $2 on 101,111 shares traded.
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