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Posted by admin
Considering that my focus is on diamonds it seems appropriate to have the first content post regarding diamonds.
A project I have been following for some time is the Churchill diamond joint venture between Shear Minerals (majority operator, TSX.V-SRM) and Stornoway Diamonds (TSX-SWY).
This project is near the northwest coast of Hudson’s Bay in Nunavut, Canada, near the town of Rankin Inlet.
What is interesting about this project is that one of these bodies is the Kahuna kimberlite dyke. It is an igneous diamond-bearing tabular/sheet-like vertical body about 4m wide on average and very deep with a linear extent of at least 5km. The diamond grade is a little less than 1ct/t and diamond valuations are pending.
Kimberlite comes in a few different flavours. The kimberlite at Kahuna is hypabyssal or magamatic. This means that the kimberlite intruded as a sheet into the surrounding Canadian Shield rock and crystallized slowly at depth. The diamond distribution of this rock should theoretically be homogeneous or the same throughout the body. This is in contrast to diamond deposits that consist all or in part of pyroclastic/volcaniclastic kimberlite. Here the diamond-bearing kimberlite has erupted into the air in a spectacular fashion, scattering kimberlite fragments and the diamonds in a circular pattern. Later geologic processes re-work the erupted fragments with wind, water, and chemical action. These processes will create a resedimented unit of kimberlite with zones where diamond can be alternatively concentrated or depleted, such as in the Fort a la Corne kimberlites, being evaluated by Shore Gold (TSX-SGF).
Therefore the benefit of the Kahuna body is that is should be relatively easy/cheap to characterize in terms of $/ton kimberlite at the diamond distribution will likely be homogenous, whereas the 70+ kimberlites of the Fort a la Corne cluster each have numerous zones within them that vary significantly in diamond grade.
Disclaimer: The author holds 500 shares each of SRM and SWY. The views expressed in this article are based on the personal knowledge and experience of the author. Please conduct your own due diligence when investing.
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