DIAMOND PAGE — Kimberlite from WO yields diamonds

An 82-metre-thick interval of volcaniclastic, mud-rich, indicator-bearing kimberlite, encountered near the previously tested DO-29 body on the WO claim block near Lac de Gras in the Northwest Territories, has yielded 1 macrodiamond and 11 micros from 82.7 kg of treated core.

Kennecott Canada Exploration collared the vertical hole 100 metres north of a 1993 hole that encountered indicator-poor kimberlite. The recent hole was drilled to test an offset electromagnetic geophysical ground anomaly.

The WO claim block is held 40% by Kennecott, a division of Rio Tinto (RTP-N), 35% by DHK Resources, 15% by Aber Resources (ABZ-T) and 10% by SouthernEra Resources (SUF-T).

DHK is an acronym for the three companies that own it equally: Dentonia Resources (DTA-V), Horseshoe Gold Mining (HSX-A) and Kettle River Resources (KRR-T).

North of the WO claims, further testing of the C-13 kimberlite zone on the Commonwealth claim block returned 50 macros and 121 micros from 581.9 kg of sampled core. (A macro is defined as exceeding 0.5 mm in at least one direction.) Twelve of the macros are greater than 1 mm in their largest dimension, including four stones larger than 2 mm.

The Commonwealth block is held 45.6% by Kennecott, 44.4% by Aber and 10% by SouthernEra. The 502-sq.-km block adjoins the southern boundary of the Diavik Diamonds project, which lies at the eastern end of Lac de Gras.

To date, four diamondiferous kimberlite bodies have been found on the Commonwealth property: C-12, C-42, C-49 and C-13. In Canaccord Capital’s Daily Letter, mining analyst David James cites previous microdiamond results from the C-13 target, including 15 macros and 40 micros from a 269.3-kg sample. James says the joint venture has tested C-13 with at least seven holes, six of which intersected kimberlite intervals ranging from 6.1 to 50.1 metres in thickness. Drilling has yet to intersect the main body of the kimberlite.

SouthernEra says further evaluation will continue on both the D029N and C13 kimberlite pipes. Comparing recent results from the two pipes to the Lac de Gras diamond counts, James states that “these are not outstanding figures, but [are] still very interesting.”