Vancouver — Shear Minerals (SRM-V), Northern Empire Minerals (NEM-V) and BHP Billiton (BHP-N) have discovered two additional kimberlites on the Churchill diamond project north of Rankin Inlet in eastern Nunavut.
Drill holes CD-6 and CD-7 targeted circular magnetic anomalies measuring 250-by-200 metres and 150-by-150 metres, respectively and cut two new bodies, dubbed Kalluk-3 and Kalluk-4. This brings the total number of kimberlites discovered so far to five. The remaining three are known as the Qaumallak (Lightning) and the Kalluk-1 (Thunder) and Kalluk-2 pipes.
The current phase of drilling will test a minimum of 15 targets of the 217 geophysical anomalous targets identified to date on the property. To date 5 of 6 targets tested hit kimberlite. Hole CD-5 was terminated prematurely after cutting 45 ft. of granite due to poor drill conditions. Shear states that the target remains unexplained and warrants future investigation.
“The goal of this year’s program is to establish whether there are kimberlite pipes within the project boundaries and their spatial distribution," said Shear President Pamela Strand. "We are drilling geophysical anomalies in areas where we have good regional chemistry. We are collecting enough kimberlite to obtain a representative microdiamond sample. The level of success realized at such an early stage in our drill program increases the opportunity to establish an entirely new kimberlite province in an area of Canada that is under-explored for diamonds.”
Shear has a 51% interest and is operator of all exploration programs. Northern Empire is earning into a 35% interest by incurring $750,000 in exploration expenditures. BHP Billiton has a 14% interest in Churchill and has also agreed to fund the costs of collection, sampling and processing the initial 200 tonnes of kimberlite.
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