EDITORIAL PAGE — Search for diamonds is a learning process

How much difference did news of the Tenby property core contamination from the Northwest Territories make to the various diamond exploration plays across Canada?

Precious little, one would think, judging by the market movement and ongoing exploration work.

Junior Dia Met Minerals, for example, a neighbor of the Tenby joint venture partners and the first of the Canadian diamond players to gain national prominence for its early kimberlite exploration work in the north, has been trading at record levels (and at blue-chip prices) on the stock exchanges. And a growing army of juniors continues to send out press releases detailing field activities to the extent that this newspaper could probably fill several pages listing the exploits.

Yet, the discovery of synthetic drill bit diamonds in the Tenby core sample of Aber Resources, SouthernEra Resources and Commonwealth Gold could have been a disaster not only for those three diamond explorers and their never-say-die investors, but for other juniors engaged in similar exploration work across the country.

The rare yellow microdiamonds identified initially — to the delight of many — as the real thing, turned out to be artificial. That was the bad news. On the positive side, the small core sample did yield a pair of white microdiamonds and one green diamond, all of which were natural. Embarrassing as it must have been, the Tenby partners issued a new release explaining the lab’s findings of synthetic drill bit diamonds in the core samples. The damage was done. An earlier warning by the companies, printed in this newspaper, that 8-kg samples are too small to provide reliable test data seemed to go unnoticed. Thank goodness it wasn’t a bulk sample containing hundreds of carats that turned out to be contaminated.

Experts agree that finding a diamond mine is a riskier business than uncovering, for example, a gold mine. The exploration process alone is said to be extremely time-consuming and painstaking. Just locating the trace minerals can take years, especially in areas with inhospitable climates. Kimberlite structures must be identified and then sampled, that work possibly taking a few years, particularly when year-round access to the property is difficult because of geographical considerations.

While this newspaper continues to print stories of new potential precious and base metal finds across Canada, the “in” exploration game these days is diamonds. The gem search currently extends from Alberta in the west to Quebec in the east, and to the Northwest Territories. The fever has spread to south of the border, too, from Arkansas to Oregon, to Wisconsin and Michigan. Nobody could be happy that bogus microdiamonds turned up in the core samples. That it occurred only goes to show how much more vigilant the testers need to be. One slip early in the game can be cautiously overlooked. Should it happen again, investors might not be so forgiving. We hope the lesson has been learned.