The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) has launched a 5-year, $650,000 program designed to evaluate kimberlite occurrences around Kirkland Lake, Ont., and develop strategies for kimberlite exploration in the area.
The drift prospecting and drilling program, which falls under the Northern Ontario Development Agreement (NODA) between the federal and provincial governments, will also test for gold and base metal indicators. The government initiative is a welcome boost for prospectors who have been struggling to promote the Kirkland Lake area as a viable hunting ground for economic diamond deposits. Kimberlite is the most common host rock for diamonds.
“Most of the information about kimberlites in the area is held by Lac Minerals or Monopros, and other people can’t learn from that” said the GSC’s Beth McClenaghan, who will supervise the project. “I feel that its our job to provide some information to the juniors.”
A sonic drilling program currently under way is focusing on four known kimberlite pipes, including Regal Goldfields’ (CDN) C-14 and B-30 pipes in Clifford and Bisley twps. and Sudbury Contact Mines’ (TSE) two pipes at Diamond Lake in McVittie Twp.
The GSC will test the pipes to a bedrock depth of 10 metres using a 9-cm diameter bit. Fifteen overburden holes will be drilled up-ice and down-ice from the pipes to examine glacial dispersion patterns in tills and esker sediments.
The 15-kilogram overburden samples will be processed to determine the number and composition of diamond indicator minerals including garnet, chrome diopside, magnesian ilmenite and chromite.
Bedrock samples will be subject to petrological, geochemical and mineralogical analysis as well as age-dating and isotopic studies. A down-the-hole geophysical logging program on previously-drilled exploration holes and three sonic holes will map the geophysical character of the kimberlites.
Meanwhile, the GSC will examine heavy mineral concentrates from the Ontario Geological Survey’s regional drift sampling programs in the Black River-Matheson (BRIM) and Kirkland Lake (KLIP) areas.
The heavy mineral fraction of the 2,000 till and sand samples collected during the programs will be tested for kimberlitic indicator minerals.
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