A fall drilling program at the Jericho project in the Northwest Territories has resulted in the discovery of a land-based kimberlite body dubbed Contwoyto-1.
The discovery hole was collared at an angle of minus 45 and intersected kimberlite starting at a down-hole depth of 54.5 metres. At last report, the hole was still in kimberlite at 146 metres. The new body is 30 km east of the original Jericho pipes and 20 km north of the Lupin gold mine.
The Jericho project, a 50-50 joint-venture between Lytton Minerals (LTL-T) and New Indigo Resources (NDR-A), comprises a 1.2-million-acre land package about 400 km northeast of Yellowknife.
Contwoyto-1 was discovered in the immediate vicinity of an indicator mineral train, where kimberlitic float material has been recovered. Preliminary microdiamond analysis of 180 kg of the sampled float material indicates that it is diamondiferous, though no diamond counts were published. Lytton does caution that it is too early to determine if the Contwoyto-1 discovery is the source of the float.
Drilling will continue to test other targets near the new discovery before moving to the central region to test targets close to the diamondiferous JD-03 and JD-01 pipes.
In the meantime, a 35.9-tonne mini-bulk sample of JD-03, collected last spring, has yielded 10.41 carats of diamonds for an implied grade of 0.29 carat per tonne. A 1-mm square screen was used as the bottom cutoff size. Thirteen of the recovered diamonds either weigh or exceed 0.1 carat each, with the two largest stones weighing 1.18 and 0.75 carat.
The bulk sample consisted of 32.8 tonnes collected with a reverse-circulation drill and 3.1 tonnes extracted with a core drill.
The results compare to a previous, 10.5-tonne, mini-bulk drill sample that returned a 6.22-carat parcel of stones greater than 1 mm in size, giving an implied grade of 0.59 carat per tonne. If a single, large, 3.6-carat stone is excluded from the calculation, the implied grade falls to 0.25 carat.
The partners estimate that the JD-03 pipe, which lies under a small lake 7 km west of the land-based JD-01 pipe, contains a resource of 10.5 million tonnes to a depth of 350 metres. There are no immediate plans to evaluate the JD-03 pipe further.
The JD-01 was estimated by the consulting firm Steffen, Robertson and Kirsten (SRK) to contain a 6.1-million-tonne resource at an average grade of 0.94 carat, based on a cutoff size of 1 mm. The JD-01 diamonds are reported to be worth an average of US$60 per carat, for an implied value of US$56.40 per tonne.
A prefeasibility study by SRK determined a minable, open-pit resource of 3.8 million tonnes grading 1.01 carats per tonne, with a stripping ratio projected at 4.2-to-1.
In related news, Glen Laing, a former president and director of Lytton, is suing the company for damages relating to his employment contract. Laing was sacked by Lytton as president in August, and shortly thereafter he resigned as a director. He is now president of New Indigo.
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