Finds in South Africa and N.W.T. keep SouthernEra Resources busy

With a diamond find in South Africa and a ground position next to one of the most prospective kimberlite pipes Canada has thus far offered up, SouthernEra Resources (TSE) is expecting 1995 to be a busy year.

About 150 people attended the company’s recent shareholders’ meeting in Toronto, where they were briefed on activities in the Northwest Territories, South Africa, Venezuela and Zambia.

Many of the attendees flocked to the tables where all of the diamonds found at SouthernEra’s South African fissure property — weighing a total of almost 50 carats — were on display. All were under glass; some were under microscope.

The company recently announced results of an independent valuation of diamonds recovered from a 10.67-tonne sample taken from the 100%-owned property. The 46.325 carats recovered from the sample were estimated to have an average value of US$43 per carat.

SouthernEra has started an accelerated program of exploration and bulk sampling to expand the extent of the fissure at depth and along strike, and to collect progressively larger samples to obtain a more representative sample for valuation.

At the meeting, SouthernEra President Christopher Jennings said a strong presence of indicator minerals, notably ilmenites, was noted near the fissure, “and the thing that’s encouraging to me is that 12 km away, you find the same mineral chemistry.

“We haven’t found the source. We know it goes very deep, but we don’t know how long it goes laterally, although indications are that it runs for many kilometres.

Much of Jennings’ address to shareholders focused on SouthernEra’s 4 million acres of land holdings in the Northwest Territories. Although it started with a 6-million-acre package, the company dropped 2 million acres that proved to be barren. Jennings pointed out, however, that SouthernEra still has holdings in and around four areas already known to be diamondiferous.

“On our ground we have 45 kimberlites. There are a number that remain to be tested and there are probably a large number of targets right in the Lac de Gras area.”

Summer drilling on these holdings is under way.

“We’ve redrilled some kimberlites that we drilled late last year,” Jennings said. “We only penetrated kimberlites a few metres before we abandoned drilling, and we’re still waiting for the results.” He noted that the site is just 1 km away from the A-21 pipe of Aber Resources (TSE), which appears to have commercial potential.

“We have several key pieces of ground, but the highest priority is the extension of Aber’s A-154 [the site of the recent discovery of a high concentration of diamonds], where we have a very strong land position and a number of good targets that remain to be drilled.”

SouthernEra has interests in three properties, just south of the A-154, amounting to 40%, 20% and 10%. “The luck of the draw could be that we find (kimberlite) on the 40% ground,” Jennings speculated.

SouthernEra’s ground in the Mountain Province area, 100 km southeast of Lac de Gras, is said to be rich with kimberlite indicator minerals, and Jennings considers the SouthernEra claims that lie 125 km south of Lac de Gras (and which are 40% owned by Alberta-listed Noble Peak Resources) to be promising. SouthernEra exploration crews will be working in both areas through the summer.

“There remains a lot more exploration to be done. This is going to be a very interesting year for us.”

In Venezuela, SouthernEra has applied for the ground covering a known kimberlite dyke.

“It’s a huge area — at least 15 km long by 2 km wide — which the garimpieros (local miners) have mined. In the area we’re working on, there’s a good chance of finding blows or discrete pipes in the vicinity of the dyke.” Meanwhile, in Zambia, SouthernEra has a 12,000-sq.-km concession in which 16 priority targets have been identified by an aeromagnetic survey. Additional work planned for 1995 includes continuing geological mapping, photo-structural interpretation and soil sampling, as well as drilling where warranted.