Pele peers into Cristal

Junior Pele Mountain Resources (GEM-V) has begun drill-testing the Cristal diamond showing at the Festival property, near Wawa, Ont.

Earlier this year, Pele recovered a white, 0.72-carat gem-quality diamond from the Cristal showing. The stone, which was recovered from a 13-tonne sample of bedrock extracted in late 2001, measured 4.42 by 4.28 by 3.58 mm, making it the largest ever recovered in the Wawa region.

Also recovered were 39 stones exceeding a 0.85-mm-square-mesh sieve size and 57 stones measuring less than 0.6 mm in any dimension. The larger group of stones combined to tip the scale at 1.142 carats, and the smaller group weighed a combined 0.234 carat.

In late 2001, Pele collected a 100-tonne sample from Cristal, from which the Canadian exploration arm of De Beers recovered 96 small but commercial-sized diamonds. Using its “total-content model,” the major estimated Cristal’s grade to be 0.06 carat per tonne, down to a 1,000-micron (1-mm) square-mesh cutoff.

The Cristal showing lies near the southeastern border of Band-Ore Resources‘ (BAN-T) GQ property, where drilling is testing seven heterolithic diamondiferous breccia bodies. Two holes recently sunk in each of the Engagement and Rainbow prospects yielded a total of 2,751 diamonds from 401.88 kg of heterolithic breccia, and seven stones measured greater than 0.5 mm in two dimensions.

Kennecott, a division of Rio Tinto (RTP-N), can earn a 70% stake in the GQ property by spending $15 million on exploration and completing a feasibility study. Toward that end, it plans to sink 12 holes in the current campaign and follow up with bulk sampling. About 50 tonnes will be extracted from each of the chosen sites.